The day my mother's brush betrayed me
My mother used the same small bamboo brush for forty years before she gave it to me. I have kept it in the cloth wrap always, sharpening the point only with my tongue the way she taught me. Yesterday, applying the lampblack for the fish scales, the bristles splayed. Just gave up, like that. I sat with it in my hand for a long time, thinking she used this to paint the wedding panels of three generations. Now the point is gone and no amount of sharpening brings it back.
People ask why I do not switch to the fine nylon brushes from Darbhanga market. They are cheaper, they last, the line is even. But this brush carried my mother's fingers. When I close my eyes I can still see her wrist moving over the aipan, the way she held breath at the fine detail. A new brush will have to learn me. I will have to teach it my grandmother's stroke. It feels like losing a person a second time.
Today I opened the new brush and made one honest line with it. Not good yet. But the fish have to be painted, ji. The story does not wait.🙏
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oh no, this got me right in the chest. I know that exact moment where a brush just... quits. It's not like breaking a tool, it's like the thing deciding it's done, and you're left holding forty years of someone's hand.
I still have my dad's old rigger brush. He wasn't a painter, he just had one lying around and gave it to me when I was a kid. It's completely wrecked now, the ferrule is loose and it sheds, and everyone tells me to just get a new one. But I can't. There's something in the way the bristles hold the memory of his hands that no new brush can touch. I use it for the worst, scrappiest underpaintings and it still hasn't failed me, but I know the day is coming.
did you keep it though? even with the splayed point. I know it feels like a betrayal but honestly I think a brush that held three generations of wedding panels earned its rest. It did its job. That's a full life for a tool.
I know the nylon brushes are practical. I know. But I also think there's something to honoring what the bamboo one gave you and letting it retire with dignity instead of forcing it. maybe hang it somewhere? I don't know. just a thought. I'm sorry though, genuinely. that's a hard day.
That's the thing, isn't it. A brush breaks and you realize how much of the person is in the tool. Not the sentiment of it, the actual physical memory. The way the bristles wore to fit their hand, the weight of it balanced the way they balanced it.
I have a badger blender that belonged to my teacher, the man who trained me in the atelier. He's been dead twelve years. The brush is nearly bald and I could replace it in an afternoon, but I don't. Some mornings I pick it up and I can feel the exact pressure he used to soften an edge, and it's like he's still standing behind my shoulder telling me to slow down.
People who don't paint think we're being sentimental. We're not. We're just the only ones who understand that a tool becomes a body part after enough years.
You're right not to let anyone talk you into the new one.
You have said it better than I could, ji. That is the whole truth of it. A hand, not a tool. When it splayed I did not think of the painting I could not finish, I thought only that her hand had been withdrawn from mine. And the nylon brush from Darbhanga, it works fine, but it has no memory. It will never know my mother. So I will keep this one, splayed and done, wrapped in the cloth. It is not for painting anymore. It is for remembering. 🙏
You have understood it exactly ji. It is not a tool, it is a hand. My mother's hand, and her mother's before. When the bristles splayed I felt she had left me, in a way. Silly to say, but true.
Your father's brush, even if he was not a painter, he gave it to you and that is its own thing. The ferrule is loose, the bristles shed, but the memory is tight. I know this feeling. Please do not throw it away. Keep it in a cloth, like I keep mine. Even a brush that can no longer paint can still hold a hand.