Painters

I am a painter, as are all who stand around me in this eternal room of pure white. Before each soul stands, upon an easel, a painting. After long walks through the endless rows and columns of focused and hurried painters, I have found that I am far different than most. Those paintings immediately around me tend to be like mine (yet still with a great degree of variance), but ours are by far the exception. Whereas my canvas is immense, stretching forth high above me and far to my sides, many are small and could easily be carried under one’s arm. Mine also differs from most in its progression… Sketched outlines are here and there, yet only a few parts have paint upon them. I began this piece only a short time ago – I nearly gave it up several times, thinking it too difficult and that I would do better with lesser attempts, but thankfully I did not, for it is beginning to express a great deal of beauty. I do not know what it will look like when finished, but I do know that my work is different than most of the rest. Before most souls stand small, nearly completed paintings, each one part of a long series. Mine is hardly begun. Yet, when I think on it, I realize that many painters, regardless of the size of their canvas, have had great intentions but, far too often, their finished products do not bear the glory previously imagined (I could tell by their hurried hands and smeared and splattered paint). I myself have finished several and that fact, at times, worries me, as only a couple of them have resembled those of most artists. Although, lately I have been trying to draw solely from those works around me, for their beauty and magnificence far exceed others I have seen. Oft times I will study the works of others and realize elements that need to be incorporated into my own work, and sometimes those flits of inspiration are not actually to be found in the colors and lines of others’ – it is at those times that it is as if a voice speaks to me, instructing me how to press on, where to draw my next line, which parts to erase or retry. It is an interesting work and I am eager to witness its progress and its eventual finale. Yet, as I write those words of hope that selfsame voice tells me that if I press on with this same piece, it will be a masterpiece that will not be completed until my days are done. What an interesting work this will be…

~Sean Spenser McQuay