the artist's studio

How many times have I ridden at dusk on the ferry to your San Francisco studio and home, the pelicans beating out a rhythm with their wings as they zip along just above the silver water? As the sun sets in a modest blush of yellow pink over my right shoulder, all ahead of me blends into deep purple, with a tingle of orange lights all in a line at the horizon. The prospect of a surprise encounter with a work of art, the anticipation of a visit to your studio, the California egrets poised, all become reasons to paint.

"Come into my studio. I need your opinion." The first ten minutes of any visit to your house belongs to your art. The first place I am ever expected to go after the hugs of hello is your studio. I may get stopped along the way by some new figure hung on the wall that needs to be acknowledged and examined, then on to the works in progress in that very special room where the art-making alchemy takes place. Daily you go to your studio and give yourself over to the painting process and whatever unexpected places it takes you.

You and Mom used to tell the story of when I was a small child and reacted to a visit to a friend's house by wondering aloud, "Where’s the studio?" A house without a studio was something I could not comprehend. The studio was the heart of our home. Who we were became manifest there in brilliant and startling expressions on canvas or paper. The smells of paint, turpentine and ink sent thrills of possibility that made one’s hair stand on end, as the courageous or reticent or cocky artistic athlete stepped up to bat, spit in the dirt and challenged the moment and the materials to pitch us a fast one. It was there that a deep sense of pride in my birthright as an artist was born and nurtured.

the roving artist

Running the entire length of the house I grew up in was a chilly and close scattering of basement rooms, like the chambers of a mole tunnel. Mom had a well-lit room in front as her studio. She could be found wielding acids and sharp tools to make images on copper plates, applying dense black ink, wetting heavy paper, manning the etching press wheel, and expectantly pulling back the printed and embossed proof off the press.

Painting of a harbor by Esther Hamerman (Mutti)

Grandma Mutti’s basement room did not presume to be a studio any more than she presumed to call herself an artist. Hers was just an out of the way grandmotherly cubby and her method was simple and humble. Beginning her canvas with a pencil sketch, she filled in with paint and finally went over each line painstakingly with black ink, producing endearing naive treasures without ever bothering to notice how extraordinary her work was.

Your studio was near the garage in a dark space that never saw a broom. I used to construct mini-ranches on the floor at your feet out of paint-brushes, dust-balls and tapioca beads. Above me your brush plunged at the taut surface of the canvas in fast and jerky gestures. The air was thick with classical music and cigarette smoke. Bach’s first and second violin concerti seemed to give structure to the universe. Ravel, Gershwin, Canteloube, Ives, Swingle Singers, Nichols and May, Tom Lehrer and the Beatles supplied a story for every hour, a home-made opera for the cast of painted treasures that played across the walls of our house.

I was the roving artist, as I am even today, taking my projects with me through the warren of creative cubbies, and naturally welcomed by all the adults. I honored the hours put aside for this endeavor of making art. I shared the sense of completion and rest after work was done. I engaged in the puzzling and problem solving that takes place in a world without words.

a room beyond

Long before I encountered Messiah, as an artist child my brain was becoming acclimatized to realities beyond the common. This is how I first learned to understand: meaning came from a thick wad of lime green paint as it sidled up against a rough carmine smudge, texture pounded its teeth at me, color poked and joked, perspective played its persuasion, and shapes constructed implausible marriages. The nearer object was smaller than the farther, two did not always follow one, and gravity was just one of many laws for an object to succumb to.

While you taught me to respect and cultivate the intellect, you did not call yourself a scholar. For you, the nuggets lay in the gesture, the motion, the colors and smells, the discerning eye that tells you when enough is enough, when it's too much, when it's hungry for more. Without knowing it, by reaching beyond my intellect I was building a room for God to dwell in.

I find confirmation of my experiences, even those of my childhood and the long road before I reached the Messiah, in the words of the bible. Here, for example, Paul writes to the Ephesians about comprehension that surpasses knowledge:

an unseen power

I have heard you speak many times of giving over to an unseen power when you paint. The voluntary action of giving over I learned in the studio. I developed a reflex of acquiescence to the flickers, hunches, glimmers of impulse, desires and dreams that help make a good painting. Like a fawn etching a new path through the woods, I was laying the groundwork for pathways of meaning upon which I would one day travel with Y'shua.

As I ponder the stories of my life, from the joy of growing up in an artist’s environment, through grappling as a Jew with our history and faith, through your divorce from Mom and the subsequent collapse of my family, the thrill of learning animation and music, the aimlessness of a godless life, the enormous satisfaction of my lovely little family, to my most recent blossoming in the Lord, I see God’s signature at work. My life is not my own, but is a garden of opportunities lovingly crafted by God, for me to draw nearer to him.