Line

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but I’m beginning to think straight lines are best only for practical matters. Thomas Jefferson, when designing the gardens at Monticello, laid out his practical vegetable gardens in straight, narrow lines, but his flower gardens were all curves. Art, like flower gardens, is meant to be curvy.

I wonder if healing is meant to curve as well. I have been attempting these last three weeks to create some kind of daily rhythm, to organize my days with regular events: breakfast at 8; sketch at 1; nap at 3. I have failed. Every day is chaos and surprise, sometimes caused by the intrusive doctors who control events for me now, sometimes caused by my own physical weakness. I nap a lot, but not rhythmically. I nap when I need to, not when I plan to.

I used to think that rhythm was the essential ingredient in discipline. If I had regular times for art, writing, grading, gardening or friends placed as firmly in my schedule as times for teaching, then I accomplished things. The many articles, books and paintings I’ve produced over my career convinced me that discipline is linear, the straight line of time.

Now I’m not so sure. My days are chaos; they are like lines that have been bent back upon themselves. Yet I’m still producing. Not a lot, true, but the chaos is not empty.

If I look honestly at lines in my drawings, I see now that rhythmically spaced lines produce just rhythmically spaced lines and not much else. It is the irregularly spaced lines, the chaotic ones, that contain all that is human. Lines spaced closely together are shadow and pain; lines spaced far apart are highlights and happiness. Lines cross-hatched are texture and complexity. Thick lines are boldness and strength; thin lines are elegance and subtlety. Lines that meander are motion and dance. And lines that bend back upon themselves are the spirit of the wind itself.

Above: Windy Day; acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches. Copyright 2008 ptw.