Art Lesson No. 96

Last night was one of those nights. Good company, good food, good conversations... in a rather unconventional setting with my house a total mess, the studio next door being renovated, and other aspects of life in a mish-mash.

Awie was there to help Zane with his new studio. Then Qalam and Bashir arrived to join us during dinner. Conversation flowed -- mostly about art.

In the midst of tinkling laughter (mine) and clouds of smoke (theirs), Qalam turned to me and asked quietly, "Are you happy here?" But the way he asked it was as though he already knew the answer. I just said, "Yes!" and thanked God for having Zane, Musa, this house, the studio, our art, and even the small things like the garden table Zane made, the pergola, our junk car, the food before us, etc.

We talked about future plans, dreams, artists, and paintings. We talked about their recent Penang trip, Zane's new studio next door, about Musa's painting.

Then, Zane brought out the writeup I did for Lautan Tiga, the upcoming three-man show he's doing with Tuan Azhar and Mie Pak Lah. He asked Qalam to read it. I was horrified! My first reaction was to lunge forward and grab the piece of paper out of Zane's hand. Instead I shrugged my shoulders, put on my infamous poker face, and cringed inside. Let the crit session begin, I thought...

-- because Qalam is such an educated, literate, intellectual person, with deep philosophies, thoughts that never stop running in his head, a keen observer, and has profound perspectives and opinions on many and all things. He's one of the heads in fine art at a local university, he paints, does installation works and sculptures. He's a curator and writes about art. He reads a lot, too -- his house is full of books of every kind -- from bibles to Quran, from classics to children's, from trash to everything else. And that's how I know he's well-read --

So yeah, I felt a little unworthy.

Well, he read it quietly...and worse still, didn't say a word when he finished. Probably trying to think of something nice to say, but coming up with zilch! Oh, God...

Then he came up with this: "Good. You wrote about the artists, their backgrounds, their experience..."

I knew it wasn't a compliment and waited for the inevitable "But..."

But it never came, well not immediately.

About half an hour later, in the midst of talking about something else, he inserted the "But..."!

"Maybe you can explain about their current works. Don't get stuck writing about their biographies because we already know that. But their works, now that's something new, fresh."

Made sense.

Then, another half hour later, he took out one of Zane's abstract works and said: "When the artist has signed his work, he's ready to show it to the public. And that's when you come in as the viewer to interact with the painting. The painting no longer belongs to the artist; it is open for the public to interpret it anyway they want, and the artist has no say already."

Just like how an author can no longer be possessive about her novel once it has been published, marketed and read by readers, I thought.

Then, he took on the stance of a lecturer (because he is one in his day job), and started making an example of Zane's work and how I could write so many things about it.

"At first glance, this looks like an abstract work. But then, you can see that it has elements of a landscape painting, which is natural because we know that that is what Zane 'suka buat; dia punye suka.' The warm swirls of colour here -- they look like a sun. The lines here suggest growth, ferns growing. The central colours here are perhaps the jungle. And everything is on a horizontal plane, suggesting some kind of landscape.

"The whole feel of the painting is very 1980s...the colours chosen, the content. During the 80s, Malaysians, and a lot of artists were obsessed with budaya, kebangsaan, trying to find their Malaysian identity. In that context, perhaps the ferns here represent Zane's own ideas of identity, of his kemelayuan."

He had a lot to say, but he took his time saying it. I'm glad that despite feeling a little inferior about my writing, I was able to put those feelings aside and be open to what he had to say. I think in terms of writing on art, he could be my mentor. He suggested that I take up a course on art history, and Zane was all for it, too.

So this turned up to be a long post because I don't want to forget it. Last night was a wonderful moment. One of those things that you just never planned for. And even though my life is full of glaring imperfections, I'm glad that with Zane in my life, and all the things that come along with him, I am able to appreciate the more enriching aspects of my existence in this world.