DAVID K. SLAY, PhD
This rather staid, monochrome still life dates back to my childhood, when I attended a private art school. Its psychological significance was revealed to me when I took a creative writing course in college, and wrote a short story about how, when I looked at this painting as an adult, I could tell which brush strokes my teacher had added (as a way of teaching), and I could see the overall effect was his, not mine. At first this discovery“ruined”the piece for me, and I put it away in a closet. In college I majored in psychology and eventually becamea clinical and community psychologist, but I always knew, or thought I knew I would return to painting. I did return to this painting after retiring, but as the subject of several fiction and nonfiction stories I was able to get published. In writing stories, it’s not always apparent, even to the writer, what a story is “really” about. One of the stories, a “micro- fiction” piece, was picked up by a publisher that pairs each story with a piece of “stock” art. I proposed that she instead use the actual painting the story is based upon, and that’s how it turned out. So this painting has made the trip from my child art school days, to a short story in college, to now, 65 years later, to illustrating a piece of micro-fiction:
The Art Lesson
(Oils on Canvas, 12” x 16”)
At some point the paintings would seem finished, and I could find nothing more to add. Standing beside me, my teacher would quietly regard my work, and then ask, “May I?” Taking my brush in his hand, he would add a few strokes to the picture, darken a shadow perhaps, or add a highlight here or there. I always was surprised, and a little disappointed, when he showed me how much had been missing. But I was young, and more than happy to have the painting completed, and I quietly knew only my name would be in the corner. (D. Slay, Bright Flash Literary Review, February, 2021)