october_rosehip

In college, I found the art prof who knew everything, and followed him around in a most annoying fashion until he taught it to me.

When we did silverpoint, the first one I did was of an angel. I planned it for a gift for a family who were always looking out for me but whom I never seemed to be able to repay. They didn’t mind, they were just like that. But I figured, the mom liked angels, of the Christmas card variety. I would make her one.

When I showed my mentor my work he laughed and laughed. I had concerns. “What did I do?” I asked. “Did I do something odd?”

When he caught his breath he replied “Yes, you ignored medieval dogma and would have horrified one of my own teachers…”

He went on to explain. You see, I had given her a strong body. I had drawn her A) female and B) capable and working hard. I had her resting in a tree, not-quite-Michaelangelo level muscles on her shoulders and arms. Worse than all of that, I had given her FEET. My prof had caught a whole ton of trouble in school back in the day for drawing in the margins of his notebook. It wasn’t that he was drawing, but what. He drew angels, and much as I had done, he drew them with feet peeking out from their robes. His teacher screamed at him that feet were earthly. Feet were dirty. Feet were a sign of sin of earthbound creatures. He had to write “Angels do not have feet” a thousand times on the blackboard.

“Um. Wow. If they’re going to bother with bodies at all why leave parts off? Should I change it, though?”

“Oh, HELL no. Just know that you are making a controversial theological statement. Some people deserve to be offended.”

I decided to make another. When I graduated, I gave him a gift. An egg tempera painting of an angel. I gave her pheasant’s wings, feet, a gauzy green shift that bared her muscular shoulders and exposed, ever so slightly, the rest of her very human body.