Dots

              The thing I hate most about patience, is at some point, while you’re trying to become more patient in life, you wonder: “When will I finally be patient, so I can stop trying so hard to be patient?” My failings with this spiritual fruit tend to become more evident while I’m pulling 10 -hour shifts at the preschool. Ladies and Gentlemen, that is a 7:30a- 5:30p day trying to get 3-6 year olds to “listen”. There comes a point, between wrangling children off of trees, and trying to explain why they shouldn’t use bathroom words, where my first response is to shoot a firm cry of “JUST SSTAAAAAHHHP!” when kids decide it’s a great idea to push each other in line, instead of stand statuesque with their hands behind their back and a bubble in their mouths. And sometimes, when I have to calm down a screaming child, I’m tempted to start crying and tell them how much I want to see my daddy.

            Art tends to be the most therapeutic outlet for when I’m coming off a long patience- testing day. Whether or not it’s a difficult project I’m planning, I can usually count on finishing it within a few weeks, and I enjoy taking my time on certain deets. Except for “Dots.” That one sucked. I knew that I liked doing “stippling” with a felt- tip and figured doing it with paint (i.e. “pointillism”), while being more time -consuming, would give me more street- cred. I think it was the way that I chose to go about it. To do pointillism, you can make the dots any size in the world you want. Being cocky, I chose to use one of my smallest brushes. It also does not matter how big the canvas/ paper is. I decided to use a 16x20. Also, for each area of a certain “color”, you have to make 12 different unique mixtures of paint so that people can tell it’s made of dots, and not just a regular old painting. It wastes paint, time, brainpower, and is not rewarding for a long time. I began “Dots” May of 2012, and finished it February 2013. That’s about 10 months. My initial goal was to finish it by the end of summer. Working for five hours would get me a fist- sized area of blue for the sky, and to put that in perspective, I have small hands.

            I didn’t like working for hours on a thankless job every weekend. I like seeing results within the first couple hours: something to enjoy watching the process of, not a ¾ blank canvas with scattered dots of paint and smudges of pencil. But I needed to do it. Mostly for ‘afore mentioned street cred; but also because it was an excellent practice. When I invested my time in it, the part of me with the tiny ounce of patience enjoyed it. It was rewarding to think that I could sit patiently for hours at a time and meticulously choose where to put the next dot. I liked making a dome- shape of paint on the flat canvas, and allowing it to dry before going back to that spot to lay down another dot. It was sick, but I liked it sometimes.

            It was a much -needed lesson in patience, and I’m pretty happy about how it turned out. The moment it was over, I thought to myself “never again.” But usually when I say that, I end up doing it again. So, to continue punishing myself, I’ve begun another one. It’s the same 16x20 sized canvas, and I’m using my thinnest brush. Only this time, the picture is way more complicated, and it’s gonna suck.