When One Loses His Tail...

Sometimes painting is just like writing poetry – you look at an empty canvas and you wonder what is going to give it an identity. Then you take the painting knife, hold it almost like a pen, and let the colours run free to determine shapes.

I think a poem re-invents a language not through words or expressions, but by organizing these in a way that most of us do not dare. Just like the colours and the unforgiving movements of the painting knife upon the canvas.

In my case it is even more challenging since an abrupt move would tear the hare skin; and, if the colour is too heavy or inappropriate for the context, I cannot clean it up – the animal skin is porous and all deposits of colour are permanent upon it.

... So, I had a hare skin dried and ready for behaving as a canvas. I found a frame that would accommodate the shape and size of that hare skin, but I had no idea what to pain on it. I started running the knife gently upon my new canvas since it is similar to drawing a draft on paper with a pencil.

A few minutes later two eyes looked at me and a pair of ears wanted to hear what I had in mind.

Well, a squirrel, of course!

When I finished drawing/painting this squeamish looking squirrel, I realized that I had not painted a tail yet.  I had two choices – paint a tail or use a real squirrel tail.

I opted for the latter, but could not figure out how to use it. One logical approach would have been to make it part of the squirrel’s body:

But that did not seem to be very creative.

Then when I looked at the face of this critter, he looked almost bewildered. Something was disturbing him.

Of course! He had lost his tail!

So, tried a couple of scenarios, and ended up with the final project framed as shown at the top of this entry.

… But that did not seem to take the anxiety of this squirrel away – every time I look at him/her there is that look of anxiety that bothers me.

This squirrel will never get his tail back.

September 20, 2019

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019