Living with Maria, I sometimes feel as if I only know how to do two things in life: write and work with dogs.
She sometimes regrets that she didn’t focus on her art earlier as I did my writing, I sometimes regret I didn’t focus on other things.
I think one day Maria will see she has always been working on her art, her whole life.
We balance one another out in this way, but today I felt a bit awestruck at the time, energy, skill and creativity she brought to this new project.
We didn’t even really think about it until Friday and we got a can of yellow paint just to test our ideas.
We went over the colors and agreed on them, but she is the one with the vision.
I got pretty sick and spent most of the weekend so far coughing and resting, after my writing class I was just spent. Maria took apart the kitchen, moved the stove and counters, took out the window frames, moved microwave and food and dishes out into the dining room, and set up her brushes, cans, paint tools and tarpaulins.
Every time I got up from my haze – I had a pretty good fever – a different part of the kitchen had been painted. Rather than test our colors, she just painted them. First, the yellow, then the soft green beneath.
And now, when many people are going to sleep, she is adding some red trim to the window sash, just for another touch of color.
She only has one coat on, and will need two or three, but we are both happy with the touch of red and plan to paint the bathroom door red as well.
This is far cry from the simply, spare colors of the interior of old farmhouses, it definitely has a New Mexico, Latin kind of feel to it, with a touch of India here and there, also a bit of Gee’s Bend. An artist’s house, for sure.
Maria knows how to do many things.
She once restored houses, and I don’t know how to do any of those things. I could no sooner take apart a window than fly over the house.
She didn’t like restoring houses, and missed her art every minute, but I think this work gave her confidence in working with different colors and tools, she thinks of things in her art that surprise me and others all of the time and I think she will come to see that all of her life and work informed her art.
Maria saw this different kind of kitchen clearly in her mind, and unlike most creative people, she knew how to make it come to pass, and attacked it with the creative intensity she brings to her life and her art. Maria is reading a biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, and I read some of the chapters and learned that much of his art came from his understanding of tools and details.
I think artists need to know how to make things, it underlies their work.
I just got out of the way today, partly because I was sick and useless, and partly because I would mostly be in the way.
In our lives, I shop and cook and work the phones when we need something – she hates to talk on the phone. I find the farrier, carpenter, electrician, handyman, house and pet sitter, eye doctor, portable toilet for the Open Houses, I work the outside, she works the inside.
Living with someone like that, it is easy to feel useless about some things, but we each zig where the other zags. I sometimes feel incompetent, but never resentful.
She is a person of remarkable skills and energy. I’m sorry I couldn’t help her more today – I usually can do some of the painting – but I sure appreciate her and admire the depth of her skills and creativity.
I don’t yet know how she does so much so well in so short a time.
Anyway, my coughing has finally slowed down, I think I am turning the corner. Tomorrow, If I am better, we’ll set out to see if we can visit Connie in her hospital bed. I know she would like to see us, and also Red. As a certified therapy dog, he can go into any hospital int the state unless there are special circumstances.
I called ahead and they said he would be welcome.
While I recovered, we seem to have a new kitchen. I like it a lot.
