Just Painting
I started painting in earnest at seventy-three.
Not just coloring canvases and passing time. And not just filling up empty hours.
Just painting.
The kind where you stand back six feet, gaze at a canvas, and wonder whether you've done something worthwhile or just convinced yourself you have.
In those early attempts, I was hungry for approving opinions.
In fact, I was dependent on them.
A compliment could carry me for days. A casual criticism would settle in my mind and refuse to leave.
I studied every comment, every reaction, every raised eyebrow, as though other people's expressions might somehow reveal a painting's worth.
All the while, I knew something I didn't much like admitting:
I probably thought my work was more stunning than anyone else did.
I could see everything I meant to say.
Others only saw the painting.
And that difference mattered.
What troubled me even more was knowing that other painters would see it.
Painters know things.
They see the awkward passages, the uncertain edges, the places where courage ran out and caution took over.
I imagined their verdicts long before they ever spoke them.
Most of the criticism I feared never actually came.
But the fear itself was real enough.
And when feedback did arrive, I smiled, nodded, thanked the giver,
while somewhere inside I quietly assembled a defense.
I wasn't angry.
Just protective.
The painting knew how hard I'd worked. Why couldn't everyone else?
Then a respected artist friend said something I've never forgotten:
"Don't worry about what others say. Your art is an expression of you, not a means of getting approval. Let your art speak for itself."
Simple words.
But sometimes simple words arrive exactly when they're needed.
I didn't change overnight.
I still listen. I still learn. I still wonder what others think.
But those words loosened something.
They gave me permission to stop standing between myself and the work.
To paint what I see.
To paint what moves me.
To let the canvas carry its own burden.
After all, I didn't come to painting at seventy-three to win unanimous approval.
I came to it because something inside me needed to be expressed.
And that expression, however imperfect, is mine.
So now I paint.
I do the work, sign my name, and let it speak.
And so it has.
And so it does.
And so it will.
wcd
