Eye of the Beholder, part 2

Well I promised to post again about this incredible thing that my irresistible k did for me. Painted a painting. And I still can't quite get over it.

It came about because of an offline assignment I'd given her a while back: to describe a "perfect weekend" of what she'd envision us doing together if I hopped on a plane and came to visit her. Sort of a travel-itinerary, but with a lot more graphic sex than you might find in an in-flight magazine, say. And as part of the exercise, I indicated that she could include pictures or drawings (since she's so good at those things, and generally has a very visual imagination, I think) if the mood struck her.

Well it turned into a longer and more elaborate undertaking that I'd imagined, mostly because she decided that she wanted to paint a painting for me. There were other beautiful artworks in the package she sent as well: sketches of us kissing, laying in bed together, a beautiful photoshopped image of us dancing, and even a cartoon drawn in crayon that gives me one of those deep cathartic laughs that seem to fill my whole body down to my toes. But the painting is the most cherished of all.

For one thing, it's not like my talented k does a whole lot of painting. It's something she does every once in a while, usually as a special gift for someone close to her. So when I see the painting, one thing I see is my slipping into a position in her life where I'm intimate and trusted, on the level of family and dear friends.

Then there's the time factor. I'm no artist, but I know that it takes a long time to do a piece like this. Sketching out ideas, choosing and mixing colors, painting layer after layer, letting them dry, making corrections. It's a real project that you have to be dedicated to. And my lovable k, prone to bouts of ADD-ness at the glimpse of something shiny, is not one to focus for long periods of time on projects unless she really wants to. So I also see in the painting a gift of her time, knowing that it occupied a small space in her mind over many days.

There's also the sensuality of the act of painting. Spreading layers of textured acrylic color over the canvas, the strong yet supple hold of the brush in fingers, the controlled sweeping arcs and lines. Something about the image in her mind becoming manifest. Most intriguingly: she takes the given flat, rectangular whiteness of the canvas and creates in it a world of swirling color, graceful balance, delicate composition, loops and spirals and shaded softness. That interface between canvas and paint is the union of Dom and sub, and (in our case) between masculine and feminine. An incomplete metaphor, to be sure, but with some truth in it.

So when I see the painting, I see her concentration, the precise motions of her hands, and I see her making love to me at the same time.

And of course there's the subject matter of the painting itself. It's smallish, probably eight by ten inches, perfect for holding in my lap to gaze at, which I am doing as I type this. In style, I think of it as being a sort of gothic-romance by way of Japanese manga. The silhouette of two lovers in the distance, on the crest of a hill, in a forest clearing, under the moonlight and stars, fireflies twinkling, some sort of nimbus of love spiralling around the couple. Rich deep purples and blues and blacks, splashes of white and dusky orange. Altogether gorgeous.

So I see a million things when I look at the painting, but more than anything I see her love, shining out of every brush stroke. The woman of my dreams, this one.