The day the fish eyes stopped coming to me

Yesterday while painting I realised I have drawn fish almost every single day of my life since I was maybe six years old, and still the eyes give me trouble. Not the shape, that is easy. But the eye is what makes the fish alive or dead. My mother used to say the eye is the soul's window, even for a fish. She would watch me finish the body and then stop, and she would take the brush from my hand and do the eye herself, one small circle with a dot inside, and the fish would suddenly be looking at me.

Yesterday I finished the whole piece, all the fish, and when I stepped back I saw every one of them was looking the same direction. All staring to the left. Like a whole school that had decided something together without telling me. My wife laughed and said they are all going to the same place, maybe that is good luck.

I did not correct them. I left it. First time in my life I let the fish all face one way. I am not sure it is right, but my hand did it, so maybe the hand knows something the head does not. Has anyone else ever looked at their finished work and found the hand did something you did not plan, and you left it anyway?

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Inês Costa·1w

The eye is the last thing, isn't it. You can work a body for hours and it stays an object, but the eye turns it back into a being. I know that stop in the hand, the hesitation before it. And when someone else finishes it for you, that moment becomes theirs forever. You've been carrying your mother's hand in every fish since.

I paint light, not eyes, but I understand the fear of it. There's a second where you could make it alive or leave it dead, and no amount of practice takes that weight away. Maybe that's why it never gets easy. Maybe it shouldn't.

Mateo Serrano·1w

The eye thing is so real. In clay it's the face, the moment you put the last mark on and it stops being a lump with features and starts looking back at you. I've had pieces where I've stared at a blank face for an hour, terrified to make the call, and then you do one tiny thing, a cut for a lid or a pinch for a nose, and suddenly there's a person there judging you.

And your point about someone else finishing it, that hit different. My abuela taught me the same with the kiln. I'd load it scared and she'd just... know. She'd tap it a certain way and say "this one's going to crack, don't cry about it." Now every time I open the door I hear her voice before I even look. Their hands stay in ours forever, eh.

Ramesh JhaOP·1w

Yes, exactly, that moment of fear. The hour of staring, I know it. When the brush is loaded and still the hand will not come down, because once the eye is there the fish is either alive or it is dead, there is no middle. And you are right, when someone else does that one small thing, it is not the same as you doing it. It is a blessing they are giving you.

Your abuela with the kiln, that is a beautiful thing. They know because they have carried the fear themselves. My mother never explained the eye to me in words, she just took the brush and did it, and after some years I understood she was teaching me that the last mark is not about skill. It is about courage. And also patience, to wait until the hand is ready.

Does the crack ever come anyway, even when she said no? I have had pieces where all the signs were good and still something went wrong, and I think that is also part of the teaching, learning to say it is okay, the fish is gone but I am still here.

Ramesh JhaOP·1w

You have understood it fully, ji. That is exactly the thing. And what you said, that the moment becomes theirs forever, I never had the words for it, but yes. Every fish I paint, some part of that eye is still my mother's. I do not mind. It is like she is still teaching me.

And what you say about the weight never leaving, I think that is true also. I used to pray it would become easy. Now I am not sure I want it to. A thing that is easy, you do it without heart. The fear is the respect.🙏

You paint light. That is a difficult thing also, because light has no line, no shape. It is all in the seeing. I have great respect for that work.

Tomáš Havel·1w

That hesitation is the whole honest moment, I think. You can build a room of salvage for months and it's still material until you place one thing just so, and suddenly it's inhabited. The rest is craft. That one placement is the part you can't fake and can't learn twice the same way.

Your mother doing the eye for you, that's a beautiful thing to have carried all these years. But maybe the reason it's still hard is that it's supposed to be. The day it gets easy, you'll have stopped really looking.

Sol Reyes·1w

God, that last line. "The day it gets easy, you'll have stopped really looking." That hit me somewhere hard.

I know exactly what you mean about the one placement. I do these big gestural figures, charcoal, and there's always a moment near the end where I've got the whole body massed in and it's still just... marks. Then I go in for the eye, or the mouth, or the tilt of a jaw, and suddenly there's a person in the room staring back at me. It's terrifying every single time. You'd think after a thousand drawings it'd get less scary, but no. It gets MORE scary, because now I know what it costs.

And the thing about your mother taking the brush, doing the eye for you, that's not a crutch, that's a gift. She gave you the thing that's hardest, over and over, until it was yours to carry. Some of us never had that. I'm a little jealous, honestly. I made every mistake alone in a room for ten years.

Anyway. You said something I'll think about next time my hand freezes over the paper. Thank you for it. ❤️

Ramesh JhaOP·1w

You have said it so exactly. The scary getting more, not less. I thought it was only me, that after so many years the fear should go away, but it does not. Each eye is the first eye again. And you are right, when we know what it costs we feel the weight of it double.

Your charcoal figures, that moment when the person comes into the room and stares back. I know this feeling from the other side, ji. In our tradition we say the artist does not finish the work, the work decides when it is ready. The eye is the one place where we cannot hide. All the body you can keep as marks only, but the eye demands the truth.

May your hand stay steady in that moment of fear. It is a good fear. It means you are still looking. 🙏

Ramesh JhaOP·1w

You have said the very heart of it. The day it becomes easy, that will be the day I am only drawing and not seeing. My mother knew this also, I believe now. She never told me the eye was difficult. She only took the brush and did it, and let me watch, and in that watching I learned that some marks must always carry a little fear. Maybe that is why the difficult ones stay alive, ji. The ones that never quite obey us are the ones that keep us humble. Thank you for this, truly.