THE ART OF SELF CORRECTION
3/22/07
When I was a college student I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to paint and draw and do everything an artist did. I had several struggling artist friends. I spent a great deal of time in the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, Connecticut sketching the masters. I had made friends with several museum guards;who would often critique my work. On occasion they would let me do sketches of them. They would often laugh when I would have to erase or refused to show them the sketch until it was finished. Corrections were constant in my work. I could never be completely satisfied with the results. I still have that damned quirk in my character and I’m still trying to correct it.
As a young art student this drive for perfection was more of a compulsion stemming from a lack of self confidence, rather than a lack of talent. I realized during those years that everyone was a critic. The worst critics were those who knew absolutely nothing about art, unless they were praising their lava lamps or bongs. Those were tough times for a young artist trying to be taken seriously.
I no longer obsess over art . I just do what I do and say damn all critics. I once received second prize in a juried university art show. I entered a large portrait of a beautiful, ebony goddess who I secretly adored. She sat for the portrait and endured four sittings of two to three hours each, until it was completed. Her beauty was spectacular. Her poise was regal. I captured her perfectly. Often during these sittings other art students would come to watch as I added each fine detail. I gave her the painting after the art show. I met her more than twenty years later, when she told me she still kept the painting in her bedroom. That was the finest compliment I have ever received. The artist who came in first place had done a large, overworked abstract, and was an odds on favorite, very attractive, assistant in the art department. I received two commissions from that show and the heartfelt compliments of all who attended. I felt both robbed and rewarded. The first prize was $250.00, second was $100.00 . Self correction could have been applied then, when I allowed myself to feel slighted by the judges.
During my artist period I also wrote songs, played guitar and piano, performed and wrote poetry. I later tried to write several novels. I vented a blaze of creativity for nearly five mind numbing years. Rejection and the physical needs of food,clothing and shelter, became my ultimate enemies. A need for serious self correction became apparent, and I used my degree to get a corporate job. This wasn’t the smartest move for someone with an artistic flair, though I made many friends in that company. Friends who like myself were also going through a period of self correction.
I continue to correct myself in almost every aspect of my life. Apologizing to someone for saying something mean or careless. Driving at slower speeds after receiving a ticket. Trying not to say inappropriate comments in appropriate company. I try to keep myself at a two drink limit at parties. I try to make certain the hor’derves don’t have spinach in them. Self correction is a blessing and a curse, that leads me to obsessive self consciousness or to obnoxious elitism.
I never considered myself an elitist in anything, but when I see someone driving erratically in front of me, or hear someone cursing at someone else in a public setting , or someone so drunk that their loud laughter becomes so annoying you want to punch them, then I often get an attitude of intolerance, and self correct my attitude before I regret my actions.
Self correction is an art form I am unsuccessfully trying to perfect. Maybe life is just one continual self correction? If I accomplish anything right the first time around it’s purely by accident.
L.A. STEEL
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