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TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, a shaman told me I was a vessel. She said I would be recognized for doing good work, but I would never own it. I didn’t know what that meant. I liked how it sounded, though. It’s always been clear that you don’t get to take it with you, and at that point in my career the suggestion that I might be able to feed myself by painting was encouraging. I didn’t know that in ways my art would own me. The shaman’s forecast came at a time when I was discovering what the artist in me does, and how much an extension of my life it is. I examine the world around me and describe truths I come across. Not in grand or meticulous academic terms, but more like a conversation in a bar that begins with: “Have you noticed . . .?” That’s how I generally work; I notice, then I dig in. But this year is coming at us from all sides, and it’s hard to focus. Ecological disaster. Social decomposition. Economic disparity. Political bankruptcy. And this invisible, deadly menace called covid. It’s been a tough year, and many people have suffered greatly. It clearly is one of the defining periods of my lifetime. I had to paint it, but I was having trouble getting to what the it was. My paintings aren’t what I see. They are what I feel when I encounter something, and what I learn when I examine what I feel. I decided that I’d paint the pandemic to represent this chaotic time. The subject disturbs me. The virus turned hos-
a thousand words
Holding On
pitals into dangerous and fearful places. If you are taken there, your loved ones can’t come with you. You are vulnerable and isolated. If you die, it’s among strangers. The healthcare workers are brave and dedicated, and they do their jobs at huge risk. It’s brutal for everyone. I was really rattled by the photos of the temporary morgues. The racks of body bags. The overcrowded holding rooms in funeral homes with remains packed side-by-side and sometimes on each other. The human forms were clearly distinguishable in the wrappings yet showed no indication of gender, color, what country they were born in, or what god they had worshipped. I have to name these things to get past them. Art gives me control, which is good, but I don’t have the option to not paint them just because it bothers me. I have to give it my best try. That’s the part about being a vessel. I’m required to hold what I’m given. What imagery would honestly relate those feelings wasn’t clear, so I started doing quick sketches from web photos to coax things to the surface. I began with elements from hospitals overwhelmed with covid patients. The doctors, nurses and patients, gestures and clothing, equipment and environments. The drawings of workers taking the bodies to the trailers for storage were the most difficult. I would go back to them regularly during the course of this painting to keep the horror simmer-
STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK
ing inside me. I didn’t want things to get light, or pretty. Death is a small yet material part of the painting. It had to be there. I also didn’t want to lose touch with how perilous it is for anyone caring for people who have the virus. I also drew people on bar stools raising their glasses, and young men and women in beach attire, playing and laughing. My earliest sketches of the entire hospital scene had those people mixed in with the patients and healthcare workers. I even had a guy in the back waving a big American flag. Once I was comfortable with my subject and could feel where the core of it was, I began to bone it down. I eliminated those outside issues: the bar and the beach. They were born of anger. The less distraction you have tugging at you, the faster and further you go. It was weeks from when I first picked up my pencil until I knew the final form of my painting and put out my colors. The first three-quarters of creating an image like this is searching-out what I’m trying to say. The rest is deciding how to present it. That can go to the last brushstroke. The painting isn’t an effort to duplicate a place or time, it’s where I landed at the end, complete with souvenirs and bruises from the journey. I’ve never hated doing a painting before this one. I’m glad that I saw it to the end, and even more so that it doesn’t own me anymore. n
ICON | SEPTEMBER 2020 | ICONDV.COM | FACEBOOK.COM/ICONDV
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