I recently broke a crown on my tooth. I was eating a wafer of chocolate and I felt a gritty, sandy taste in the chocolate. “Huh… Interesting,” I thought. Not your typical chocolate. I then felt a hole in the back of my tooth and pulled a crown from the middle of a gooey piece of the chocolate’s center. Surprise.
I was sitting in the dentist’s chair this morning and Bob Ross’s “Joy of Painting” was on the monitor. This was a show in the 80s where Ross instructed people how to paint. He posed as an interesting figure who had a hippie look with a large bushy afro of hair, a peppered brush of beard and half opened shirt — for good measure to ensure that he would maintain the honorific, “King of 80s Cool.” He looked like one of his paintings; a natural looking weathered landscape that resonates with quiet solemn power.
The sound was down but I watched him paint as I anxiously waited for the dentist. This guy had a calming presence even without the sound on. He told the viewer which paints to use, started brushing in what would be a sky and water with blue. As I watched him paint, I noticed that he started with a wash. He then worked in little details. I questioned some of the colors he chose. These colors didn’t make sense to me, but who am I to question a master like Ross?
As I watched him, he dabbled around the painting placing natural elements in different places. He wasn’t even looking at a picture, but Bob was known for creating a vision from memory and prided himself on “happy mistakes” if something ended up not looking right to him. What appeared to me as an oil slick slowly became a piece of muddy ground with rocks and pebbles, after a rain. A crooked line of Van Dyke Brown with a shade of amber becomes a tree trunk.
A scene slowly emerged, something recognizable, something tangible that I’ve seen with my own eyes.
I thought about art and how an artist works around a canvass picking and choosing places to place things. I’ve seen it with cartoonists. They start with lines that don’t seem to make sense, but eventually as the cartoon takes shape, a figure emerges and makes all the sense in the world. This is what happens in the art of life.
I’ve been studying Taoism lately and that religion talks about “the way of integrity.” Two parts come together in unique ways. All things will be made whole in their own time. Chaos works toward harmony. When one paints the icon of the Tao, the symbol of the yin-yang, there is a process. In the art of living, there is a process unfolding. Sometimes the waiting is the hardest part. Taoism teaches if you don’t sit back and watch the process unfold, take a breath and rest, you lose a sense of perspective. Full immersion in anything can take us off track. A sabbath is required for all to examine what has been and to help us take the next step in terms of moving forward on the journey.
“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery.” (Tao Te-Ching: Verse 1)
Andy Goldsworthy is a contemporary artist who shows this in his art, too. He creates his art from nature and slowly builds sculptures that fall apart only to start again until he achieves the desired result he was looking for. There is a quiet Taoist-like patience to this man.
My doctor, Dr. Emily, told me, “We try to make it nice here. No politics, no news, just a little bit of art to keep us calm.” I loved that she saw the need for that. I felt like in her own healing way, she was planting calm in the subconscious mind. Let the process of life unfold. In the end, it’s all going to be all right.
Art reminds us where we need to be. There are perspectives to be taken and adjustments that need to be made to see the complete picture clearly. Sometimes we’re in the middle of projects in our own lives. We need to see like Taoists, let the project take shape, let the process of unfoldment work its magic. It may not be what we expected and we may need to start again.
Slowly a picture will emerge and you will be happy with what you’ve created or may need to start again. As my dentist posed the potential options, she revealed to me that “we could re-cement on the crown I had, and I didn’t need a new one. There are other options if that doesn’t work.” Another score for a well painted outcome and “happy mistake.”
spirit beat 