my opaque artist

I’m not really sure he works. Artists are always like that. Flighty, fluttery. You’re never really sure where they are or what they’re doing. It probably involves paint. Or they have paint on their hands for some reason unknown. There’s no transparent artist. Or anyway, we don’t want there to be. It’s supposed to be dreamy, not, “Yeah guys, actually, so, I work at Pizza Hut most days but then on the weekends I make stuff, or at night, or at 5 AM.”

I picture him with a tiny sketchbook in his hand. I don’t know if this is accurate. But he’s gotta write down these crazy ideas sometime, right? Whatever it is. Some crazy contraption or some terrible poem or some horrific self portrait. I mean, that’s the kind of art I do, so it’s easier to imagine.

Art is really hard. I know it is. Unless you somehow land some cozy job where they pay you to do it because you’re some kind of brilliant mind, and you can prove you are. That’s the hard part. Being loud enough, yelling it where someone important will hear you. Otherwise it’s you in your garage or bedroom or basement grinding, cutting, lazering, gluing, whatever. And then painting, of course. Or you’re on a guitar or piano or saxophone. And your art is music; sketching it in pencil on paper. Bringing it to life not with paint but sound. That’s good stuff. Important. Necessary.