If Life Were in Oils and Acrylics

I thought that perhaps if i took a step back, the splashes of hues would make more sense, as how one would appreciate a Georges Seurat painting, or a Monet. I thought of myself as being able to make out certain forms - a smiling face here, a sunset there, a bunch of fruit or flowers. Still, as I stepped away - seven months away - things look even more confounded, all Jackson Pollock. No forthright forms, no Van Gogh flower beds, Cezanne olive trees. I've wanted to take my x-acto knife to the mottled canvass, turn it into ribbons with its pretentious spatters and spiders. Then gladly start all over with an unsoiled, unspoiled, new-gessoed ground. Alas, real life is not like that. Each of us is dealt the paints in many different hues, but given only one canvas. If I desire that warm, glowing Rembrandt sunrise, those rosy-cheeked Renoir children, Degas dancers, I'll have to make do with what I have. Layer over the motley mess that is already there. Paint me an ultramarine Renaissance fresco sky, a scumbled pastel cloudscape, Vincent's starry night. No Kandinskys or Miros wanting an acid trip. Bold Matisse figures or crisp-edged Toulousse-Lautrecs, daybreaks sfumatoed to glowing, landscapes in trompe l'oeil. Not mind as the earlier layers of pigment show through as scars of the could-have-been, instant impastoes on the new oeuvre. Michelangelo demigods, or Gauguin everyday people; Fra Angelico angels, cornucopia. Somehow take the challenge and display the genius of my Master. It would be far too foolish not to.