Roxy - Dialogue for Capturing the from Sky Pond

In my memoir, I changed my mentor from the male artist, Frank, to a female to shield his identify. Anyone in the painting world will know his identify if I publish any part of the memoir with his accurate reference. In this dialogue, I’m describing the actual conversation I had with Frank during a quarterly critique.

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As I meticulously prepared for my quarterly critique with Frank, my mentor, I became excited to show him my progress. Frank is a nationally recognized watercolor and oil painter. A tall, wiry rock climber from Germany, he firmly believed in tearing his students down to build them back up in his image. "As only a German can," I thought. Of the few compliments I received, one I reveled in, "Roxy, your ability to self-critique iss fery gut, you are lucky." So, I felt on solid ground as I itemized the pros and cons of each of my paintings for his assessment. "Tell him what's bad about my painting before he gets the chance," was my intent.

The world was nearing the end of the pandemic, and I sensed our two-year informal mentor relationship as well. Since we began, Sky Pond had sailed all over the Sea of Cortez, Mexico and crossed the Pacific Ocean to the Marquesas, Tuamotus, and Fiji. I wondered if Frank was getting tired of the gig, even though I paid him more than fairly. His personal art sales were picking up as people emerged from quarantine. He was impatient with me now.

I took a chance and showed him my abstract digital pieces and my line and wash sketches completed during our passages, "surely he'll understand this branch of creativity I've discovered during our months of punishing passages."

"Roxy, vhat is this?" "These little black line drawings - I don't know."

"During confinement and the malaise of continuous waves, wind, and low appetite, it's what I created to distract myself." "Take a look at some of these plein air pieces of the blue and turquoise atolls we visited."

"What are these rocks? They look like mushrooms. Why do you paint these? They are weird subjects." "Your values are all wrong. The sky is lighter than the land, and the distant hill is too dark."

"I see that, but notice my improvements, the pigment is flowing with life to create lost and found edges." "The colors of the South Pacific are indescribable. Nothing you would see on land as subjects or hues."

"Ok, Frank, take a look at this painting of a Mexican village; I think the composition of the narrow burro trail and the distant church is good."

"These two windows on the side of the house, they look like eyes, and the orange steeple should be the focal point, yet you didn't get the hue as intense as it should be." "Why are you using this opaque pigment to emphasize the light?" He continued without a breath, "I don't know, maybe you should switch to gouache as a medium and quit watercolors altogether."

I was stunned. "John Singer Sargeant always finished his paintings using white to recapture lost light." "That's what you told me."

"You look like a beginner."

On that note, our call ended. I thanked him for his time, and over-payed him on PayPal. "Maybe that will appease him." I thought.

As usual, I felt torn down. But the building-back-up part was on me. His quarterly critiques were always accurate with regard to my skills, but his delivery this time was more acerbic than usual. Every quarter, I spiraled downward, hunched over, dragging my knuckles on the ground for months until I resurfaced for air. This time, I just fired the bastard.