September 12, 2009 WRITING AND PAINTING I haven’t always painted.. I haven’t always done anything. But, I did start writing shortly after I reached the age of reason, when I was 7 or 8. I first started painting with words, and then I started using oils. Never had any lessons in either medium. I just saw life as pictures to be painted. In my early life I moved through shadow and dream, writing down the things I saw and felt, and, later, I put an easel near my typewriter and painted what could not be explained in words, feelings, atmosphere, the majesty of a mountain sunset or a sunrise. I painted images that lingered in my mind long after they had faded from my vision. I drew first, of course, things like a duck pond while the mallards and pintails circled to land, ducks floating on the lake, trees where wood ducks made their homes. People ask me why I paint when they see me as only a writer. The question is not complicated. The answer is slightly so. I paint because at heart I am scientist, a scientist exploring not only the world around me, the visual world at hand, but the entire universe with all its majesty and mystery. As a painter, I am interested in the way light fractures on a snow-capped mountain peak, or the way it colors shadows and leaves, the trunks of trees and the way light is shaped not only by the light from the sky, but from the wind. I paint because I am a storyteller, and in my search for meaning and understanding of all life, I find the story in a desolate Arizona landscape, an old barn blushing on a green carpet of grass, its timeless reflection in a still pond. When I paint, as when I write, I can feel the objects I paint, whether they be only in my imagination, or from a photograph, or some small portion of a landscape I glimpse out of the corner of my one good eye, the one that also has no retina, but only a very small amount of peripheral vision. In my scanning, I catch the vagaries of light and shadow, the tug and tussle of the breezes in the trees, glimpses of things I cannot explain. Impressions, perhaps. My blindness has actually caused me to see more than I ever did with perfect 20/20 vision. Now, I can see nuances in all things, images within images and images beyond images. Difficult to explain? Well, yes, I suppose it is. And, it doesn’t matter. What I see is pertinent only to me. But, if what I see tells a story that you can understand, then I am most pleased. I look for more things now than I ever did. I examine those things I cannot see clearly more closely and come to some kind of intellectual understanding of all that is natural or man-made. Rather than seeing just sunlight on a patch of bare ground, I now see, or imagine I see, the glint of light on the tiniest pebble, the smallest grain of sand, and I see, also, the exchange of light and shadow between two or more grains of sand and as I scan more area, I see the relationship between the waves and particles of light and the smallest impression of earth beneath my feet. Painting has brought me a greater respect for the power of language, the way we use words to paint pictures, landscapes, humans, animals, all things. Painting has increased my perception to a degree that the writing flows more in tune with the universe and this earth, than with my weak perceptions from former times. Whatever skills I possess as a writer, and these are admittedly few, they have been enhanced by squeezing out lumps of acrylic paints onto a palette, mixing the colors and brushing them onto canvas. And, the paintings, the few that I have done, draw me into them and hold my attention like nothing else on earth. Indeed, the paintings seem a part of me, yet separate, and grip me in a magnetic web that is intangible, but very powerful. It is in the painting that I feel life pulsing through all the atoms in my body. I feel that all the strands of DNA that I possess are twisting and twining and breaking free of physiological boundaries. I call myself a primitive impressionist because I am unable to paint fine detail. My vision, what little there is of it, is skewed. I can see no straight lines, they are all bent or curved or crooked. So, I can use rulers and pieces of wood to draw a house or a barn, but even after I have painted it, the structures and all their straight lines are crooked or bent, askew in the tattered remnants of my lone and shredded macula. I have a very good teacher, who lives just outside Winnsboro, Texas. His name is Grahame Hopkins. He is from England and studied art there. His wife, Tracy, is also an artist. Both are accomplished artists and writers. I have learned a great deal from Grahame and he is largely responsible for whatever progress I’ve made as an artist using both watercolors and acrylics. He has just finished writing his first novel and both Grahame and Tracy are attending my workshop this month at the Winnsboro Center for the Arts, where some of my paintings have been on display for a couple of months. I miss all of them and will bring them home to hang on our walls this coming Saturday. Yes, I am still writing, but I wish I could paint every day. The writing takes more time and is more demanding. No one is asking me to paint. I have sold only a few paintings and letting them go was like tearing out parts of my heart. But, I am also happy that others can gain something from what I have painted, even if it’s only an elusive and fleeting moment of pleasure or a deeper sense of consciousness. My paintings illuminate me in my mind’s eye, which is still fairly intact. I see things in them that others may not see, as I do with many of the words I write. Only the artist can know fully what he or she has wrought because it all comes from some deep place inside our consciousness or subconscious that is connected with the entire universe and knows the thrill of all creation since the beginning of time. I paint because I am. And, I write for the same reason.   J.S.   *Art is something which has always been near and dear to Jory's heart--and now he has a chance to share it with his readers! As many of you know, Jory is legally blind. What some of you may not know, is that in addition to being a celebrated author, Jory also paints in watercolor and acrylics. Some of his works are currently on exhibit at the Winnsboro Center for the Arts in Winnsboro, Texas. For those of you not living in the Winnsboro area, Jory has created a special webpage to share his paintings with you. Please click here to have a look!