LETTERS FROM HOME: REPRODUCING SERENITY IN BLUES, GREENS, BROWNS AND GRAYS

June 10, 1999

Dear Patty,

The picture depicts a lush river grotto in blues, greens, browns and grays. A sandy-haired man lies on the thick grass on the bank of a tranquil river. His head rests against a stone. His blue trouser legs are rolled up, one leg is crossed over the other. A straw hat sits in his lap. He may be staring at the pale blue sky and the white clouds wrapping the horizon or he may be looking at nothing at all. Part of a skiff is visible by the river bank but he's in no hurry to go anywhere, to leave this place he seems so much a part of.

Across the stream is a gray bluff thatched on top and below by dark green plants. Just beyond the man is a skinned spot with a few rocks and a small log, perhaps the remains of a campfire. This is a place where people stop.

The picture is a detail from a Thomas Hart Benton mural, the location is called Cave Spring. The picture was in a calendar I used at work in Northern California in 1990. The back is scribbled with shorthand reminders for meetings with people whose names no longer produce a memory.

I do remember that this painting's serenity and sensuous colors and shapes made me buy the calendar. When the time came to throw the calendar away, I tore out this picture and have kept it somewhere near me ever since. That man in the painting was me, living alone in California, instantly transported home to Missouri. It came to be a serene refuge in my head.

For the past few years, DC has been trying to find a reproduction. She has called art galleries, museums in Washington, D.C., the Thomas Hart Benton Museum, but no luck. So she suggested having a painter reproduce the painting. I balked. A print reproduction is one thing. We have them all over the house. But to have one painter try to copy another painter's work seemed wrong to me.

DC persisted. She reminded me of the Van Gogh/Millet show we'd seen that compared the two painters' versions of the same scene.

A painter I know whose work I admire was intrigued by the idea. We talked at his studio. He ordinarily wouldn't take such a commission but offered to do so as a favor. I agreed on the condition that he paint his own version of Cave Spring and not try to copy it exactly.

This artist has studied and painted all over the country and is extraordinarily talented. Intensity and passion inform his work, sometimes darkly so. These are some of the reasons I like him.

What could I have been thinking? An artist is not a photocopier of other people's dreams.

The unveiling occurred several weeks later at his studio. I had gotten my wish. It was not the same painting. The river was not tranquil but rather turbulent, and below the riverbank lay some debris, perhaps the remains of a past flood. The man on the bank was resting on his side, had a beard and was wearing overalls. He read a book. The dog beside him was looking at the sky, where an owl had been flushed into flight.

In his vision, Cave Spring was still stunning but had an undercurrent of turmoil.

DC liked the painting, but the bearded man reminded her of an old boyfriend. She wondered if the beard could be removed.

Many weeks passed while the painter thought about whether he would erase the beard and I contemplated hanging this new vision of Cave Spring over the fireplace. Finally, I called him. He did not want to remove the beard. I understood. I was not comfortable with this very different vision of Cave Spring. Thankfully, he understood.

To quote those of us who are not artists, art is hard.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.