Fluent in Spanish and Art
Learning Late In Life
I highly recommend taking classes and learning something new later in life. It works our brain and body, motivates us, and humbles us. I’m almost sixty and I thought that being around others, trying different techniques, and getting feedback from a teacher would help boost my enjoyment of the process and increase my skills. Alone in my studio I was focusing on results and perfectionism.
The Truth about Life-Long Learning
The truth is that in each class I’m not just learning more painting skills, I’m confronted with my strengths and weakness with the Spanish language. I struggle with understanding assignments, vocabulary with feedback, and worst of all, I can’t easily gossip with classmates. Speaking in groups is a new challenge. By the time I understand one woman has been describing her train ride with her dog, another classmate is already talking about her recent vacation. Thank goodness a student had brought her dog to class and I could stroke it’s soft fur and tell her, “Que bonita!” (How pretty!). Sometimes I leave class exhausted and am relieved with the silence of my solo walk home, zig zagging through the Valencia neighborhoods. Am I a glutton for punishment? Maybe. But I also always learn so much and I love painting in the precense of others.
Original Available in my Portfolio
Don’t Think, Just Paint
In last night’s class we’d been given the theme FLOWERS without any reference photos or a real bouquet. The assignment was to be loose and abstract. To me that’s like saying, “Don’t think about the elephant in the room, just paint it!” or “just relax!” About 30 minutes later a classmate exclaimed, “Es muy dificil!” (It’s hard!)This painting without observing, just from imagination. I think we were all struggling with our flower pieces while rain poured on the metal roof and we were in the middle of a regional flood warning. “It’s almost November, I haven’t been thinking about flowers,” someone else said. Mostly I nodded and said things like “Yo tambien,” (me, too) or “Si, es dificial para mi.” (Yes it’s difficult for me). Sometimes the teacher looks at me with pity in her eyes when I’m stammering my questions or ideas. She’s learned to show me techniques rather than explain in long paragraphs, but each weekly encounter is heightened with excitement and dread as I pack up my brushes and paints to head to class.
Are You Fluent Yet?
“Do you think you’re getting better?” my husband asked about the painting class. I said “yes”meekly because that’s like someone asking me if I’m fluent in Spanish. I am better than I was a year ago. Mostly my mixed- up emotions are about where I want to be in my skill level with painting AND language. I have so much to paint and say but I’m like an infant stammering. Trying, failing, improving, inch by inch, moving forward.
The trick is to only compare yourself to where you were in the past. How was it last year at this time? Don’t compare yourself to others and don’t compare to the future of where you wish to be.
Original Available in my Portfolio
Watercolor Class is a Shared Discovery
In class, in the end, when we looked around at what we’d created, the pieces were all good and flowery, cheerful in the midst of our wet winter world. I had more vocabulary to look up when I got home, things I’d wished to say but didn’t know how. Each time I go home and write paragraphs and translate them, practice mock conversations I might have in the future. And each time I take home the painting suggestions (the ones I understand) and practice them in my studio.
As I walked home last night from class, the wind whipping up, another storm warning appearing on my phone app, I held the image of myself as an archeologist. We are all, even late in life, able to uncover, excavate, dust off the parts of ourselves that were hidden. “poco a poco” (little by little) I recognize and share in painting images and speaking languages.
Someday maybe I’ll feel fluent in Spanish and watercolor painting. Maybe. But I’ll probably be busy excavating other skills, learning more, going deeper. I hope I’ll continue feel excited and humbled as a life-long learner.