Learning To See

1. Look closely at an object for ten minutes.

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Alder branch the length of my arm. Stalked buds. Craggy, grey-brown; ends tipped with cones. You’re on my right—dark wavy hair just past your ears, brown eyes framed by glasses, leaning in. I grip pencil between thumb and forefinger. Keep looking at the branch on the table. Focus on sharp lines and angles, twigs breaking away from the main branch.

* *

My home. Tall shady alders fed by a creek. Rounded heart-shaped leaves, ridged with veins. Strength of ashy trunks I can wrap my arms around and still my fingers won’t touch. In how many ways has this lush rainforest, nestled away from the city, made us who we are? Coquitlam’s proximity to the mountains, its own distinction: even more rainfall than Vancouver.

* *

I can see now, with this intentional, focused quiet, what is obvious and subtle. Render crisp lines on the page, uncharacteristically clean and sure. And you—a kind of emotional or psychological or spiritual sympathy. More than growing up here, in this time and place with a similar upbringing and values.

* *

“You two are so much alike,” our art teacher tells us at least once a week. George and Gracie. George Burns, straight man to his wife, the silly but loveable Gracie Allen. Deadpan, he of the white hair and splattered easel, doesn’t look up from his painting. “Take her to the movies, David. Invite me to your wedding.” We exchange a glance, snicker. Is it the lack of nuance that’s funny—can’t boys and girls be friends? Or that other thing he can’t get right: David is your last name. No one calls you David.

* *

Our antennae pick up the same station. Life’s Rich Pageant plays on an uninterrupted loop, filling my ears as ambient rain taps the leaves outside my window. “I just thought you’d like it,” you shrug, smile, as you pass me your REM tape in class. In my diary: he might be the male version of me.

* *

I watch you rush into the room toward your idea, gathering supplies. Hand barely lifts off the page as you sketch. In ten minutes, a plain white page becomes something else. Watercolour wash of blues and yellows. Shapes emerge in delicate, deliberate lines. The girl on the bus faces the aisle, her body left-slanting. Backlit sunlight illuminates her hair through the window. A halo.

* *

I make the decision in class: this is my calling, to be an artist. Second choice: luminous suburban madonna.

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Magic in the ordinary. And now I see that what is right here where we live might be worthy of art.

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As a child I’d have looked at this alder branch, thought “brown,” and picked up a crayon. Now unexpected shades and variances. A palette of raw umber, yellow ochre, burnt sienna.

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Fun fact: alder trees are a member of the birch family—hermaphroditic. Wind transfers the pollen from male catkins to cones, mature female flowers. They change colour—green to brown—in autumn. Open and release their seeds.

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2. Draw the negative space around an object.

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Today’s lesson: focus on the area around or between a subject, not the subject itself.

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Someone pops an Enigma tape into the class boom box. A harmonious atmosphere—electronic dance beats and Gregorian chants. The Principles of Lust/Sadness. Our teacher holds up a line drawing. Asks the class, “What do you see: a man or a woman?” Facing left, a young girl in profile with fur collar; facing right, an old guy with a moustache. We wonder: can’t everyone see both? Spend the hour drawing the v-shaped spaces between our fingers. Soft rounded edges of plants, seashells, glass bottles. Through the window, blue-grey sky lodged between upturned branches of ponderosa pine.

* *

Our parents’ religions taught us to believe in all that is seen and unseen—what is inside and outside the lines. At the lake, we talk about the soul’s blueprint—the notion that we arrived here by choice. To this place, these people, so our souls could evolve.

Our parents’ religions taught us to believe in all that is seen and unseen—what is inside and outside the lines.

You ask me to say it again; you’re so close to getting it. “We had to choose to be here. Or free will isn’t really free.”

* *

We see what we expect to see. You call yourself shy, but is that just perception—the negative space around the positive image?

* *

The first time I see you, you’re far in the distance. Guy in white t-shirt, jeans, black trench coat. Converse All-Stars. You threw open a window, belted out the Velvet Underground’s “After Hours” to my friends giggling on the grass below. One day, you scurry into the art room, jump onto a wooden chair, catch your balance—arms wide open, surfing. Ease the chair over so it lands gently. Start up “Singing in the Rain.” I blush so easily—hate standing up in front of the class. Sometimes lose my voice, feel untethered to my own consciousness, so paralyzing is my shyness. But our teacher must see in you exactly what I need. “David,” he repeats, “take her to the movies.”

* *

On a day you’re not there, he pairs us all off. A quicker-than-Vegas ceremony at the front of the class. Problem: extra boys. Solution: bigamy. When you’re back, you won’t be expected to marry another guy. Red-faced, dying: I might harbour a secret attraction to the shy, mulletted blonde in white jeans and cowboy boots who paints and writes poetry. Now that we’re married, he tells me his art—sexy pen and inked men with angular jaws and leather-clad women—arrives straight from his subconscious.

* *

A few years out of high school, you and I walk the trails. “Did you ever think I was gay?” More than one guy had hit on you; someone had point-blank asked. As we wind our way around Lost Lake, I tell you no, that’s not what I see. Attribute speculation to a collective lack of imagination. A culture that pigeon-holes sensitive men, strong women. People’s boring limitations.

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If you ever feel like a construct—not at all free—remember our teacher’s advice: When you’re stuck, don’t know your next step, look at your painting upside down.

* *

Remember my friend who sat with us in art class? Hair shaved short on one side, always dressed in black? The ankh earring, crystal ball raven’s claw necklace? The David Bowie freak? She slept over every Saturday night. Under the covers we’d talk about guys; could not have been closer. Some people warned me she might be a dyke. Again, I thought: lack of imagination. Why be afraid? On the SkyTrain to and from our favourite Vancouver hotspots—Duthies, A & B Sound, The Beatles museum—we’d take turns saying, “I wish you were a guy.”

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3. Practice perceiving with the inner eye.

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Our teacher tells us we’ll be trying a “no mind” exercise today. “I should be good at this,” I grin your way as he hits the lights. Tells us to settle down, close our eyes. Visualize you are walking into an art gallery. There’s a long, dark hallway, and at the end, hanging on the wall, is a painting. As you step closer, look carefully. Take your time taking in all the details. Commit it to memory. Now turn and walk out of the gallery. You’re back at your desks. Open your eyes. Paint.

* *

A lone ghostly woman in a gauzy, white dress reclines in a field of flowers. In my mind’s private art gallery, a projection of what seems elusive? An outdated idea of heaven? A grasp at peace? Not at all cutting-edge. Worse than that—regrettably cliché. “She worked hard on it,” you defend my painting during critique. “It doesn’t matter how long or hard an artist works on a piece,” our teacher tells us. To everyone’s surprise, Kris, whose abstract work shows imagination and innovation, says he likes mine best. “It’s the colours,” he says. “I like how they make me feel.”

* *

Projected on the white screen: a thin glaze of background paint layered with two, three, four bands of warm tones and cool shades. Our teacher asks, “What do you see?” Red-orange and yellow-gold rectangles with feathery-soft edges pulse, lift off the painting, advance toward us. Cooler blues and violets seem to float as they recede. Rothko’s colour field paintings, we learn, were influenced by the ideas of Carl Jung. An exploration of the artist’s unconscious.

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Paradoxical, these paintings reveal the artist’s interiority. Both additive and subtractive. Colour layered over colour—also a stripping away. What’s left when you remove the excess? Pure emotion. The self.

* *

In this art room, a kind of stripping away, too. Often I feel vulnerable. Protective, afraid to show anyone what I’m working on.

What’s left when you remove the excess? Pure emotion. The self.

Subsumed by a series of Rothko paintings, one after another, I want to hide. My ribcage feels like it might crack open. Heart swollen and exposed. A bundle of raw nerves, touched. In the greater scheme of things, I don’t know what to believe about God or why we’re here. But this art is sacred. Holy.

* *

A funny story I may not have told you: in kindergarten, I drew a hermaphrodite chicken. Beloved Mrs. Davies, near retirement. Watery blue eyes, thin blonde hair, sweet-smelling skin. With a barely suppressed smile, handed my mom the painting and said, “Your daughter is very observant.”

* *

Like the woman I painted from the gallery of my imagination, how much of what we create is already there? I try to mask clean edges with tape when I paint, but the underlayer always bleeds through.

* *

In a few years, home from college for the summer, we’ll find ourselves back in Coquitlam. Still making art. Still talking about Jung’s theories. Still trying to understand ourselves, perceive as much as we can with the inner eye. Morrissey hair and mutton chop sideburns. You’re dating the art-school girlfriend you’ll marry. Cat’s eyeliner and gold nose ring. I’m deciding whether to stay with my boyfriend, the actor. We walk the old ravine trails. Agree that the idea of the anima/animus is a relief—male and female contrasexual soul images we all project on those we’re emotionally involved with. An easy way to embrace the sexual opposites in ourselves.

* *

Jung theorized that when powerful feelings are suppressed, meaningful coincidences can manifest as catalytic exteriorization phenomenon. Heightened kinetic energy. Objects move by themselves. An explanation for poltergeists.

* *

I’m chalking outlines on my primed canvas. The image arrived the night before as I zoned out to a song about Van Gogh, whose Irises I love the most. The way those blues and yellows radiate, vibrate next to each other. “You’re sad,” you notice that morning. “I don’t like it when you’re sad.” I was sad. All that might be wrong with my heart. You’d been sad lately, too. Noted in my diary: I don’t like it when he’s sad. We leave our desks. Pass classroom doors—some open, some closed—as we set out on the upstairs hallway loop. An ear-splitting crash. You freeze, face me. Use the exact words I’m thinking: "What the hell was that?" Around the corner a set of lockers had fallen—no obvious cause. When we cut out of the art room I didn’t know what to tell you. Maybe I just wasn’t ready. We walked back to class.

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4. Observe your art from a distance.

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This morning’s demo. Hang your work at eye level, then take 20 steps back. Close your eyes. When you open them, try to see your painting as though you’ve never seen it before. Is there balance, unity in your composition? Keep in mind the Rule of Thirds.

* *

In our erratic mid-’90s correspondence—Griffin and Sabine stationery, one Vancouver Island resident to another—one of those things I don’t bother noting. My college boyfriend thinks that my crush on Mariel, the redhead from Russian class, is cute. For about five minutes. Then: “You’re not going to break up with me, are you?”

* *

Over decades, you and I have communed along cedar trails, around lakes, down grey sidewalks. A secret never shared, cell-deep.

* *

I’m 11, maybe 12. Five men in white linen suits and shoes, model cheekbones, pinned to my wall. Top edge measured from the floor, pencil marked at 6’2”—John Taylor’s height. How long, I want to know, until I am tall enough to kiss him? In my friend’s dim apartment, we watch Duran Duran videos on VHS. A blonde and a brunette in lacy lingerie face each other, in a trance—unflinching eye contact. Press gloved hands together. A slow, dreamy back-and-forth dance. The chauffeur appears, removes her trench coat; dances topless, corseted, in the abandoned car park. Heat radiates, prickle-stings my skin. A tiny open hand clenches into a tight fist. Open and closed, open and closed—this quick pulse below my navel. Frightened by this new knowledge that I will learn the name of soon enough: carnal. The body’s free will, separate from the mind.

* *

I left the island, moved back home to Coquitlam. Broke up with my boyfriend. After your wedding, we lost touch. You moved to Halifax, the far opposite end of the country. The week I turn 30, opening night, our art teacher turns up—now a teacher at the gallery. An affectionate side hug. Asks: “What do you see, kiddo?” The crowded room lined with my paintings. Feminist fairy tales. Up close, a dream in blue, embedded with symbols.

The crowded room lined with my paintings. Feminist fairy tales. Up close, a dream in blue, embedded with symbols.

Chocolate cake, a bowl of cherries. A fish darting around a glass bowl. “I want to know what you see,” I say. Already know that this is both the deepest part of me and a culmination. The work of men whose contributions to Western art I embraced; the women whose creative work I discovered on my own. Both showed me how to tell my stories. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says. “You should be proud.” That feeling, swelling up into my throat. Something I’m still learning to let myself feel.

* *

You’ll like this: a year or two later, he comes over for dinner. My future wife and I are celebrating. First-time home buyers. Out to our families. I fix a drink. He asks, “Whatever happened to that boy you liked so much?” “Graeme?” I say. “You always called him David.” “I really thought you’d marry him,” he smiles. “You were cute together.” At the end of the night he’s lying on the floor, half-hidden in the closet; a jammed sliding door. “This I never expected in my wildest dreams,” I joke, handing him a screwdriver. “Life,” he tells me, “is full of surprises”.

* *

We’re 40—two kids each, a few grey hairs—catching up at the café down the street from the condo I now call home. Stories I can only un-knot, unravel, tell you now. Over tea, you say it out loud: queer. A question, at first, for further inquiry. Then, over time, layers stripped away. This truth, a growing ease you can settle into.

* *

From the vantage point of my living room window, there it is: home. Or rather, the location of my old house, schools, and haunts. Everything that happened on the hill. At this distance, I can hide the geography, what is imprinted there, behind one hand. Now see our art this way: songs on a mix tape. Every day we’re true to ourselves—don’t hide—we prevent further erasure. Overdub the old songs with our own.

* *

“I love the suburbs,” you tell me one night. We’re parked on the side street beside your house, walking distance from our old high school. A bit surprised. Recall the tone my gay friend used whenever she said the word “suburbs.” I want to see what you see. Through the windshield, you point to the sky—the darkest shade of blue. Streets glisten with rain. Telephone poles slant, each their own way. Arching coniferous trees, a kind of visual echo.

* *

I’m reminded of an illustration: Seth’s cover art for Aimee Mann’s Lost in Space. You’ve seen it, right? A gouache-and-ink row of powerlines—receptors, transmitters—over sloped hills, descending. Witnesses: a starry, indigo sky.