Bust of Brutus

Shshsh! I know it's not perfect but - maybe almost! Besides, the young artist who is my Art Teacher already moved me to the next (and the more difficult) level; enlarging by mere approximation. Which means, you only have to look at the subject and draw it without any aid of a ruler or any tool for measurement. You are completely on your own!

But let me talk about Brutus. "Is that the guy who killed Caesar?!" Ja asked as soon as I got home and opened the new plate. "Yes," I said, "The person of interest." 

The way the young artist who is my teacher had said to me who the guy was made me think that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't Brutus; he wasn't Brutus at all. When I looked at the guy in the picture, I began to wish he were a Roman General instead of a Senator. He seems to match the image of a military man. There was something about his patrician forehead or is that a patrician nose. Or the way he pursed his lips that hinted of a smile or cunning; his shrewd, calculating gaze, his thick neck, which suggested of a  physique that could be achieved only through long years of training and discipline. 

I stared at him for hours. Ja could not understand why I sat there for hours, staring. "What are you doing? Why can't you start your drawing yet? Why are you staring there for so long?" I began to understand why artists stare. Van Gogh spent days staring at the potato fields when he did the potato eaters.  Or was it the potato peelers? (Yes, I came from the kitchen. I use peelers a lot!) Basta! Potatoes! Look it up in that book of his letters.  

But I stared and stared almost to the core of the soul of Brutus (if this were really Brutus. I searched the images on the web and I only found a younger face, so, I'm still in doubt). I like the guy to be a Roman General but I also tried to think of him as a convicted criminal, a leader of an underground syndicate, a beggar, a pedophile. Just to see if the characters and the picture could match. 

My drawing failed to capture the ruthlessness of the man. Nor his brute strength. In my drawing, he is not a Roman General at all. He does not even look like a Roman. I'm not making any judgment. I'm just blabbering.

Old passion re-asserting itself

When I was six, Ma came home with an exciting news about an artist/teacher, a dignified and illustrious Mr. I forgot-his-name, accepting six or seven year-old children to train under him at home. The students--whom Ma imagined could be all boys--would stay with the Master on weekdays and may go home on weekends, an arrangement similar to a boarding school for young artists.  Even in a remote place like B'la, it promised something special; it even sounded different: a training in Art. I felt loved, happy.  Even at that point, I thought, Ma must have felt something about me, must have thought I had some of what people called "potential."  I was filled with excitement. Day after day I waited for it to happen: to learn Art, to watch the Maestro render reality on paper. But the month ended without a word from Ma. I waited and waited until the waiting became so unbearable.  When I finally asked her about it,  she told me she decided against it because she was worried about me. For her, it was unimaginable: a six-year-old girl living with boys under the tutelage of a man.   That officially ended my career in Art and Ma quickly forgot all about it.  I didn't. 
Well, maybe, I forgot all about it while I was growing up but that's what I remember now.  I remember how I was quickly forgotten, my dreams set aside. 
Ma taught us to put ourselves last always.  All the drawings that mattered in school were those being done by boys.  The bold strokes, the tri-dimensional realistic renditions, the portraits that copied reality even if they were only done with a ballpoint pen. Girl drawings were merely beautiful, trivial. Together, we--girls--thrived in the shadows, learning from each other and enjoying every moment of it; and that's how we persisted. It's only now, when old passions try to re-assert themselves, overwhelming us in their intensity, that we come to realize we could have been bolder.  
Then, we want to start all over again.