Rauol Middleman

I haven’t painted in years.

It kills me...

I miss the smell of oil paint

The feel of the brush against the canvas

The sound of baroque music

On the radio

Filling the studio.

You are one of my mentors.

I took your landscape painting class

Because I wanted you as a teacher

And I sucked at painting landscapes

So I thought I would learn something.

I enjoyed painting figures and drama

And really struggled

When it came to just me and the outdoors.

Maybe it was the simple beauty of nature

That I couldn’t embrace...

I mean there I was

A drug fueled punk rocker

Out in God’s green grass

With an easel set up

Trying to paint some bucolic scene

Stretched out before me.

It wasn’t happening.

And there you were

Our teacher

Our guide

Rushing between students

Not holding back.

You were larger than life.

A bold and disheveled character

That had just stepped out of one

Of your own paintings.

You were unappologetically unkempt.

A hairy man

That if you shaved

It grew back within an hour.

Mania fueled your walk

And body language

As you rambled over the rutted grass

With loose dirty clothes flapping.

You would call the class over to someone’s set up

And point out their brilliance

Or their struggle

With direct clarity

While pulling out your lunch

And stuffing it into your mouth

Mayonnaise dripping and running

Down your cheeks and chin

Spitting out bits of food

As you spoke to us.

The piece of luncheon meat or lettuce

That fell on that person’s painting

Added color or texture

And you made no hint

Of noticing it and would move on.

You were a strong and gifted painter.

Your canvases were brilliant and bold

Huge vestiges of nudes

And theatrical portraits.

A calliope spinning into wreckage.

One afternoon

It was my turn.

You stopped by my canvas several times

Complaining about the horizon.

I knew what you were talking about.

It looked like shit.

I kept trying but nothing was working for me.

And so finally

With impatience

You yelled for everyone to come over

And pointed out the flaws

Of which the most obvious

Was the horizon line

And how it really bothered you.

You asked for my brush.

Then to my horror

I watched as you squeezed out several tubes of paint

Into piles on my pallette.

Mind you I was a student

And paint was expensive.

I would try to use my paint sparingly.

Within a few seconds

I was down a few tubes of paint.

You also asked another student

For one of their colors

And you shot it in with

The others.

Then with a deranged positioning

Of your overgrown eyebrows

You moved the brush through all of the paints at once

Rolling it

Dancing with it

And then with ONE broad stroke

Across my terrible horizon

It was there.

From a madman’s arm

Came subtle beauty.

All of the colors were there

Moving across so simply

Capturing sky and trees.

It was that humbling, astonishing moment

That I knew I was...

We all were...

In the presence of greatness...

It was as if the Mad Hatter himself had arrived

At the garden party

His face smeared with jellies and jams

From cakes and pastries

And painted the most lovely and elegant poem

Across a canvas

Right there in the sunshine

On a farm

Somewhere

In rural Baltimore

Teaching me

That anything

Truly is possible.