Beneath the Hammer of Michelangelo

If I were being whimsical, I would be a block of marble waiting for the first blow of Michelangelo’s hammer as the thin blade of steel slowly freed me from within.

An image, some impassioned vision from the mind of a genius, emerging for the first time into a world on the cusp of greatness.

But no, better to be the hand that strikes the chisel than the stone that receives the first of ten thousand blows.

I would be an artist.

The mixer of paints. The man with an untrimmed beard gazing at the beauty of a woman’s smile. The lips. Dark eyes demur and kind, sheltering a passion that for centuries was confined within. Afraid. Haunted by isolation. Desperate to run free and breathe the same air, behold the same sense of justice, the same abiding belief that the future was hers to conquer.

To capture reality; to bear witness to the greatness of the human form or a bird in flight. And without hesitation, without a gnawing deficiency that hobbles most hands, I would begin.

With each stroke, I could give immortality to a lover. Paint her hair, deep rich brown, her eyes that hold my attention so. Her lips, God the aching that ensues when I see them, and for a few hours or a few days, I too would be God.

Bring her alive yet again for everyone to see. To know. To long to have been as close and intimate as I was fortunate enough to be and then let her go. Release her to a world that should honor her and praise her and think long and hard about what their existence might be like if she or anyone like her was missing.

That would be fun.

To be in a state where my eyes are connected to my hand and what I see I can render on paper or canvas. And what I dream of, the soft contours of a woman’s breast or the raging fires of Vesuvius would appear and are as they exist before me.

The sunsets, the darkened clouds above a funeral march. Less the visions of saints and more the sorrows of common men and women as they endure whatever life throws their way. With dignity. With head lifted above the sadness to see beauty in a world built for others and only shared by them for a brief period of time.

The Renaissance was a rebirth.

A collective heave of man from the mud, muck, and pain of darkness into a brilliant light that shouted - fuck that! We are free. We are here by God’s will and by his orders designed for flight, not to be hobbled by fear and poverty and the endless machinations of those held in high esteem by themselves.

A time of great change and promise, where fissures creased the earth and what was, was left behind and what was yet to be rose like mountains. Hot and steamy and full of rage and promise, daring the world to stand ready to be amazed.

And then deliver on that promise.

To be in the ranks of artists who reshaped existence. Who took thin flat and uninspired renderings of a life filled with uncertainty and gave it depth and breadth and exuberance so that what was possible was not only in the hands of a God that was far too distant, far too indifferent at times to understand the power of color and perspective.

I would be a hand and a heart lost in motion and paints and wood splinters and brushes dipped in spirits, capturing a world not hobbled by grays and blacks but brought to life in full living color.

I would be an artist.

As strong and powerful in my brushstrokes and the capturing of light as a blacksmith with his hammer pounding metal day in and day out so that the world was held together more securely. So, that horses could be both heard and protected.

I would spend my days crafting reality. My reality. My sense of beauty, directed from my heart and my hand to a canvas, a wall, or the whimsical drawings in charcoal left for a child to find. To look and laugh at and know that in art there is life. And in life there is hope. And within every corner of that emotion is purpose and reason for why we are all here.

An artist is the keeper of souls. Not to possess but to enliven. To make whole again when they have been damaged. To rip away the chains that encircle them and shout from the highest towers and tallest trees that no one, not the wealthy and powerful, not the counters of money, no one, has the right to hold them, hostage.

For we are all free.