I love you too much

Art Burshy has picked up his routine of making portraits.
Not so much because he loves it, but actually to make some money, and people are generally more interested and connected to portraits than in his regular abstract art works.
And having done some portraits last week he started liking it again.
Sure, it is bloody difficult, especially as Art has decided not to use modern techniques to 'copy' a picture on the canvas.
He knows some artists project pictures on the canvas and then just add paint to fill the shapes, degenerating art to reproduction.
Art feels that in order to make a portrait you need to let the person appear through you.
Sometimes it requires to intensely look at the person, almost meditating, closing your eyes and feel the person inside you.
Sometimes he feels it works like a beam of light that enters your chest and when opening your eyes you start painting.

I asked Art why this is so important and he explained:
When painting you have to exceed the primary aesthetic desire to create something beautiful.
An aesthetic drive limits your freedom of expression; you focus on shape and colour, and reproducing as exactly as possible the image you see.
Even not working with pure copy you can end up reproducing And when you have made one nice line it brings you fear; fear to ruin the beautiful line you made, fear to not create a 'good' image, fear to be make a mistake.
That fear keeps you within the lines, within what a portrait should look like.
It allows the limited and 'safe' rational thoughts to take over the painting, with terrible consequences and mediocre paintings as a result.
You should make every portrait in the full awareness of the mortality of the other person, and it is better to make 1 great painting in your life than 100 mediocre ones.

When however you find a way of painting that purely relies on feeling, and on finding the image that represents how you experience the person being portrayed, then you will have the power to make a meaningful portrait.
The feeling and trance, or maybe a sort of flow, pushes away the fears and opens the space ready to be transformed into a new personal reality.

Art also explained me that he has learnt also to approach people like this, like making a portrait of them.
He is convinced that no matter who and where, you should always approach people with such an open mind, with a modest soul, and willing to let them appear through you.
Almost like allowing them into and merge with your aura (although Art makes clear he is not a believer of 'religious' aura-shit).
Yes, you listen differently when approaching people like an artist.
You provide the container for the other person's expression, you put the other person in the centre, and you ask real questions.
Not the average cold talk, but questions that matter, that are sometimes more difficult but should not be avoided.
And you are not afraid to allow the silence to take over, to notice the breathing, to absorb the emotions that are not explicitly expressed.

Anyway, while Art was explaining this all to me his wife came in, a truly beautiful appearance.
And honestly I sometimes wonder what she sees in this bearded awkward artist with his many moods and strong opinions.

She asks when Art actually will make a portrait of her..?

Art looks at her with love in his eyes and says: "Of course I can not make your portrait...I just love you too much".
And one might think he is making a joke, or he is trying to avoid the discussion, but in Art's mind this is a completely true and sincere answer.
Art in his words loves her so much that making a portrait of her brings him fear:
- fear not to capture her full beauty
- fear of her having too high expectations
- fear of himself having even higher expectations
- fear that it becomes this unfulfilled obsession
- fear of ruining his own image of her; that if the portrait fails the terrible painted image dominates his view of her
And he is not sure he will be able to deal with this fear, and to put the fear as easily aside as when painting the son of the milkman, or his colleagues wife.

At the same time deep down inside he knows there will be a day when he feels like making that portrait, and he will paint her solely from memory and full of feeling, and it will be purely the way she appears through him. And maybe it will come close to the beauty he sees in her.