You Are the Brush

It was a beautiful brush, as brushes go. 

About 9 inches long, with a smooth rock maple handle, shining stainless steel ferrule 

and impressive sable bristles for a price of about $120, give or take...more like take.

I was a 20 year old art student when I thought I had to have it. I was in an art supply store with my mom, the font of all wisdom, and told her about this brush that was necessary to me becoming the next Michelangelo. And she looked at me with one of those mom looks that says everything without ever requiring a sound. I found the brush and showed it to her. She took it in her hand, looked at it closely, tipped it one way, then the other, really studied it. I asked her what she was looking for and she said,”I’m trying to figure out where the talent is.”

Ouch. She went on to say, in so many words, that a paintbrush is only a tool. That you are the talent. That you are, in a sense, the brush. (I’ve always thought Shirl, my mom, had a little Zen rolled into her Methodist lady sensibilities.)

Granted, quality tools are a gift in and of themselves and in the right hands can be magical, but they can overwhelm a beginner and destroy your savings at the same time.  Better to learn as you go and earn as you grow I think.

I didn’t get the very expensive brush that day, or any other day, and now I paint with paper towels and rags and my hands and sticks and a spatula and a plastic fork, as well as brushes, but most of my brushes are inexpensive and bought on sale because they’re just tools, after all, and the talent is in me. The best brush in the world can’t make the painting by itself. It requires work and practice and experience and insight and thoughtfulness and daring and curiosity and joy. And time. 

Everyone is a brush, painting their own life with every gesture and every thought and every deed. 

My mom said so, so it must be true.

“It’s a poor craftsman that blames his tools.”

— a folk saying