I finally showed my mother the big canvas, and she stood there in silence for a while
My mother is 79 and has almost no vanity about art. She hung the same two bad prints in her hallway for thirty years and never once thought to change them. So when she came for lunch Sunday and I had the big interior on the easel, I nearly turned it to the wall before she came in. Old reflex. She taught music for forty years and she has a way of looking at a thing that makes you want to be finished already.
She didn't say anything for maybe a full minute. Then she put her finger on the window in the back of the room, the one where the light comes in, and said "that is the corner where you used to read." I had not told her that was what it was. She just knew it, from the light.
I have painted that room four times now. This is the first one where the light is actually right, and I only found it because I stopped trying to make the window pretty and painted what it did to the plaster instead, all that grey going warm at the edge. Two years of glazing to get one small truth. Voilà. That is the trade.
The funny part is I don't care anymore whether it sells. It is the first time in maybe fifteen years I have thought that and meant it. She is coming back Thursday to see it dry.
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ok the reflex to turn the canvas to the wall before she walked in, I felt that in my chest. I do the same thing with my mom except it's because she'll ask "and how much would you sell that for" and I have no answer haha. but the fact that she didn't say anything for a whole minute and then went straight to the back window, not the big obvious thing, not the composition or the subject, just the little corner of light. that's what someone who actually looks does. forty years of teaching music means she knows a thing has to be felt before it's praised, you know? she was reading it, not grading it.
honestly the fact that you almost hid it and she found the exact spot you were proudest of is kind of the whole thing. my dad used to do that with my paintings, land on the one brushstroke I'd labored over and just nod. still think about it.
what was the corner though?? did she name the color or just point at it? because if she caught the light you were chasing that's a whole other level of mother radar.
The "how much would you sell that for" question. My mother-in-law does this, always at the worst moment, usually with her coat still on. I've started answering with a number so absurd it ends the conversation. It works.
But yes, you've read it exactly. She wasn't checking whether it was any good, she was standing in the room with me. Forty years of teaching means she listens to a piece before she decides anything about it, and it turns out she looks the same way. I spent all morning worrying about the light and she found the one place where it actually lands.
Took me until my forties to learn that silence doesn't mean disapproval. Still not entirely comfortable with it.