Natalie Goldberg - Living Color: Painting, Writing, and the Bones of Seeing

Helens Backyard, 2013

FOR HELEN PARK BIGELOW
WHO LOOKS LONG AND DEEP AND SLOW

INTRODUCTION

Now that people know I paintIve included my artwork in books Ive written, made public my darling pleasurethey not only want to attend writing workshops, they also ask me when I will teach painting. I jokingly say, Never. But if they pay close attention, Im teaching painting all the time when I talk about writing.

Writing is a visual art. You want the reader to see what you are saying. You cant say, I love it, and expect the reader to know what you love. Instead you have to tell her how the mountain looked at dusk, the heavy creases seen from a distance, a canyon leading to a blue lake, how you knew there was water by the line of green cottonwoods, how the clouds gathered behind the twin peaks, a summer storm, and the sunset glazed the flanks of the mountain with the color of watermelon juice.

Now draw it.

But I dont know how, you say.

People used to tell me that all the time about writing, too.

First, you need to understand that writing and drawing are natural human endeavors. Trees, apples, sauerkraut jars, cars, tables, lions, dolphinsnone of these write or draw. Only human beings do. Even twenty-five thousand years ago, prehistoric mortals left images on the walls of caves deep in the earth. I had the privilege of visiting Peche Merle in Cabrerets, France, walking down many flights of stone stairs into dank, dark grottoes. We turned a corner and behold, two spotted horses etched on the craggy wall. Most moving was the image of a five-fingered human hand pressed above one horses backthe artists signature, his greeting ringing out through the long lineage of centuries. Hello. I was here. This drawing is a testament.

Tree and Stars, 2006

Isnt that what we all want from writing and drawing? We have a need to express ourselves in this transient world. To stop time for a moment. To show how we see and feel before we are gone.

But lets get back to this feeling that you cant draw. Dont pay attention to your feeling. Its giving you the wrong information. Pick up a pen or a pencilnothing fancyand an ordinary piece of paper, even a sheet from your printer, and draw whats in front of you. Go ahead. The coffee in the cup with steam coming up at you, the spoon, the saucer. Draw the raisins, the blueberries, in your muffin. Color them in with your pen. Sketch the edge of the table, the napkin.

As you draw you might hear your mind thinking. Maybe you wish you had a cupcake, piled high with icing and jelly beans? Go ahead, draw that on the other side of the coffee cup. No one says you have to absolutely stay with the concreteyou get to capture your desires a little, too. Lets be honest: The cup you drew isnt a perfect circle anyway. Thank the heavens its a bit lopsided. It has character. This isnt photography. And youve probably heard the rule: No erasing, no tearing up the paper. Accept the way it comes out. If you practice this acceptance, more will come out. Space and freedom will open up. You wont edit and crimp yourself even before you begin to explore.

Lets do another. Turn your head to the left. A lamp, a clock, a box of tissues on a wood table. Go ahead, draw them. I bet youll have fun sketching the numbers on the clock. Cant fit all twelve? So what, dont worry about it. We already know a proper clock. This one is yours. Give no thought about it being perfect. This practice is not only enjoyable, it can also calm the mind by meeting whats in front of you with no interference. No good or bad, no judgment, no editor.

When Bob Dylan began drawing, he drew whatever was at hand the typewriter, a crucifix, a rose, pencils and knives and pins, empty cigarette boxes. Id lose track of time completely Not that I thought I was any great drawer Pencil pictures of a bell tower in Stockholm, a back alley near the Chicago River, a Washington, D.C. courtyard, backstage dressing room, rooftop bar, New Orleans walk-way, Dallas hotel room, Buffalo neighborhood, motel pool, house on Union Street, house on Chestnut Street in New Bedford, the Statue of LibertyDylan drew a personal record, a narrative of what he encountered as he traveled. Drawing relaxed and refocused his restless mind and I imagine on endless tours it helped to order, stabilize, and relieve him of the tension of performing in different places night after night.

From simple line drawings you can begin to build a ground of being, a world of visual art in black and white. And then the impulse might ariseadd red, add turquoise, orange, blue. Living Color is my memoir about traveling into the life of drawing and painting. In this updated and expanded volume Ive added a lucky thirteenth chapter, documenting my further explorations into abstract art, and throughout the book I have included many new paintings for you to enjoy. In addition to sharing my own personal journey, Ive also created twenty-two specific assignments for you, the reader, to begin discovering the visual expression of your environmentwhether it be a landscape, portrait, cityscape, or a visual discourse with your mind. I have often juxtaposed assignments that are not obviously connected with the chapter you just read. My hope is to jostle your mind out of the ordinary, out of logic, and maybe after a moment of shock, snap you into feeling and creating from a non-rational place, where things are interconnected on a whole different level. Writing, painting, and drawing are linked. Dont let anyone split them apart, leading you to believe you are capable of expression in only one form. The mind is much more whole and vast than that.

Vietnam, 2003

Blue House, Santa Fe, 1984

H O W I P A I N T

What I recall clearly about the first true painting I ever did was the feeling that night that something real was happening. I sensed it in my body, in my hand holding the brusha dash of yellow in the center, red close to the purple. I moved quickly. The sky outside was dark, the house silent. A drop of bright orange, more yellow, green. I wanted to paint the night, the windowpanes. My mind was big and calm. There was only the soft air of evening and the direct connection I felt with the pot of Johnny-jump-ups on the windowsill. Actually, there was no I; there were just distinct moments. A moment when I glanced up at those faces bobbing at the end of stems; another momentyellowthat thought exploded in the hollow seat of my mind and my hand moved toward the tin of watercolors. My breath was a warm tunnel. I saw a glint of light on the water glass, on the kerosene lamp. I heard a moth bat at the screen. Black, I thoughtdo I dare? Yes! I dipped the brush in water and into that round cake, then over to the paper.