Linda teaches art: My life with the elephants

In my brief foray into standup comedy, here was my schtick: I'd draw elephants. I'd stand on stage with an easel and a marker, like a late-night girl-child Mr. Dress-up, and draw elephants. That's not the funny part, in case you were wondering. The funny part is that I'd invite the audience to name a famous artist and then I'd draw an elephant in the style of that famous artist.

I gave up standup comedy. Not just because I was a twenty-something dilettante with the career focus of a mayfly. Not just because comedy is a dog-eat-shaggy-dog profession with a greater exposure to secondhand smoke than fire-fighting. I gave up standup comedy because the audience always named the same five damned artists.^[1]

I'm an artist. I'm not famous and I'm not rich and you've never seen my work. I teach drawing and painting and, yes, thank you, it is a real job.

There are good days teaching art and there are bad days. On a good day teaching art, a student gets better, or tries something new, or discovers a painter whose work they enjoy.

On a bad day teaching art, I meet people who want to learn to paint without learning how to draw. I meet people who want to learn to paint without mixing colours^[2], without cleaning brushes, without getting their hands dirty. I meet people who want to learn how to make art without having to look at any. On a bad day teaching art, somebody asks to be taught how to paint just like Robert Bateman^[3] except smaller, and in oils, and could it be lighthouses instead of animals.

A bad day teaching art is a very bad day indeed.

Does this happen to other teachers? Do people show up at the Blue Jays fantasy camp and say, "Coach, I'd like to skip batting practice and just work on my home run trot?" Do new drivers get in the training car and announce, "I won't need first and second gear because I'm never going to be travelling that slow?" Do students arrive at the kung fu school for the first time and say, "Sign me up for black belt classes; it'll save time?"^[4]

Or is it just art?

A Parable On Learning To Paint

This is a parable. That means that Spanish is not the real subject. Spanish is a metaphor for the real subject, which is art. It's like how Aesop went on and on about foxes and frogs in his fables, but he was really talking about people. This is a parable on learning to paint.

A classroom. The teacher, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is trying to edit the last chapter of his latest novel when two students enter, Amy & Bruce.

Amy: Hello, we'd like to learn to speak Spanish.

Remember, this is a parable on learning to paint. Nevertheless, Señor Marquez is hospitable and pleasant.

G.G.Marquez: You'd like to learn to speak Spanish? Good. Welcome.

Bruce: Not all of it, you understand.

Amy: Oh, no, maybe just the short words.

G.G.Marquez, bemused: The short words.

Bruce: Or the pretty ones.

G.G.Marquez: The pretty ones?

Amy: Can we get just the nouns?

G.G.Marquez: Nouns. You only want nouns?

Bruce: The pretty nouns.

G.G.Marquez, suddenly weary & feeling his years: Of course. Spanish, but just the short, pretty nouns.

Amy: That's right.

G.G.Marquez: Does it have to be Spanish? Umberto Eco's office is just down the hall. I hear Italian is a very pretty language. Lots of nouns.

Bruce: We want to speak Spanish.

G.G.Marquez: Why?

Amy: Ricky Martin speaks Spanish.

Bruce: Do you know Ricky Martin?

G.G.Marquez: Not personally, no.

Amy: Really? I thought all you Spanish knew one another.

G.G.Marquez: Oh, for the love of God, we're not even from the same continent.

Bruce, whispering to Amy: The Spanish are all so touchy.

G.G.Marquez, bitter but resigned to his fate: Fine. Class is Tuesday. Pick up the textbook in advance.

Amy: A book? Oh, dear, we don't want to read Spanish, or to understand it when it's spoken to us. We just want to speak it.

G.G.Marquez: God in heaven, why?

Bruce: Why? Well, I like the clothes.

Marquez flinches.

Amy: I've heard Spaniards are very emotional--

A vein begins to throb on Marquez's forehead.

Bruce: And erotic--I mean, exotic--

Marquez is speechless.

Amy, whispering: And they do a lot of drugs.

Remember, this is a parable on learning to paint. Spanish is a metaphor for art, Spaniards are a metaphor for artists, and drugs are bad.

Enter Cathy, another student, carrying a book.

Cathy: Excuse me. I just had my first lesson in Spanish this morning. So now can you explain to me why everyone says Don Quixote is such a great novel? 'Cause I don't get it.

Exit Gabriel Garcia Marquez, weeping.

Pause.

Cathy: I'll bet Cervantes got a grant for this.

This is a parable on learning to paint, and the moral is written in Spanish:

Quando dicen al profesor como el enseñara ustedes recibiran la educacion que merecen.

If you tell the teacher how to teach, you get the education you deserve.

Originally published in the Globe & Mail, October 1999, in a slightly different form, under the title "Aesop and the Sunday Painters."

Endnotes

Dali, Da Vinci, Escher, Picasso, and someone in the Group of Seven (they're interchangeable).
"I need light olive green. Why isn't there a tube of light olive green?" "Because you can mix your own light olive green." "But how will I get the same colour next time?" "Practice." "Practice? That's not very creative."
Not an example chosen at random. It's always Robert Bateman. Mr. Bateman, get off your Salt Spring Island and you try teaching these folks how to paint like Robert Bateman.
No, they don't. People don't skip ahead to black belt classes before earning their lower sashes because they know they'd get their asses kicked in sparring sessions with the real black belt candidates.