Pinto Heaven

Published September 5, 2011 by rlmcdermott

I’ve been working almost non-stop on these landscapes for the last two weeks.  In the process, I tore up four drawings.  Some of those drawings; I worked on for days.  I’ve noticed since I’ve been doing “Art” that’s how things happen.  You hit a wall, stall like an old Pinto in winter (I know how an old Pinto can stall since I drove one for far more years than was sensible or safe,) and then an epiphany.   At the cost of those four landscapes; I realized I was going down the wrong road.   I remember that old Pinto took me everywhere–it sounded like a tin can on drugs, looked like a tin can on drugs, could barely clear a speed bump, and died an awful death when a drunk driver hit it one cold January night.  I was living in Manhattan then and used to park the dear-old-thing at my Mother’s in Queens.  I got the call in the morning that there had been an accident.  I rushed home to find my Pinto, now parked on my Mother’s front lawn, looking like Lawrence Welk’s accordian.  The tow-truck driver refused to back his truck up on the lawn to retrieve the badly battered Pinto.  “Give it a try”,  he said to me and, so, I climbed into the now very small driver’s seat, put the key into the beloved ignition and heard the engine turn over and catch.  I drove the Pinto Accordian off  my mother’s lawn and watched the truck tow it away to Pinto Heaven.    I learned a lot about life from that Pinto and I’ve also learned a lot about life from my art.  You have to have the courage to get into the badly parked car to start the engine and you also have to have the courage to see that sometimes you’re  just plain driving down the wrong road.  I was on the wrong road with those previous landscapes and, hopefully, they are now hanging on a wall somewhere in Pinto Heaven with a badly battered Red Pinto as companion.

Working on my Third Frappuccino or Why Do I Think I’m an Artist!

Published August 22, 2011 by rlmcdermott

Today I went to the art supply store and after filling my basket with assorted inks, oil pastels, art markers, glass bead gel, and paper–I went to the cashier.  As she was ringing up my loot; she asked me if I was a student.  I smiled at her and said no.  There I was in the art supply store, filled with people buying art supplies, ink stains on my hands, telling the cashier that I was no longer a student, and thinking to myself that I was a professional artist.  Hah, I thought to myself if she only knew what I was going to do with all this stuff.    I rushed home, smiling to myself, put my stash away, cracked open a cold Starbuck’s Frappuccino (my second one of the day) and turned on the computer.  There it was in my email–the news that I didn’t win the contest that I was sure I was going to win.  Well, I wasn’t that sure but I was hoping–a little at least.  I looked at the work of the guy who won (who deserved to win) and felt immediately that two Frappuccinos were simply not enough for this brutal day.  When I graduated grammar school; I thought I was done with contests.  Remember saving all your bubble gum wrappers and sending them in to get a Joe Bazooka  something or other.  Who was Joe Bazooka anyway–an art critic, an art collector, perhaps a contest winning, emerging artist who’s resume is as long as his–never mind?  Well anyhow, thank God for my sister (she patiently listened to me rant over the phone), thank God for this blog, and thank God for Frappuccino (as I cracked open my third bottle and drowned my sorrows in caffeine and sugar.)   When I told the cashier that I wasn’t a student–I, of course, knew that I would always be a student.  I will always be taking classes and I will always be pushing to make myself a better artist.  However, when I thought to myself that I’m a professional artist–well that’s true.  This is no hobby–my kitchen is a mess, I spend all my time working on art and I keep saving up those bubble gum wrappers (my work) to send them in to contests to try and win the Joe Bazooka something or other. 

Posted in: Art