Imagine You’re a Painter

Especially if you’re a writer

Imagine a painter.

She stands at her easel under a skylight, a cup of brushes on a nearby table. The drop cloth under her feet is dotted and smeared with color. An abstract arrangement of shapes covers the canvas in front of her. She dips her brush in a blob of black on her palette and extends her arm to paint a section th —

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

She looks over her shoulder, brush held mid-air.

“Red would be better.”

She assesses the painting. “Black.”

“For this kind of painting, with those particular shapes and colors, you want red.”

She takes and holds a breath. She rinses the brush, blots it dry, applies a smudge of red, and stands back for a look before going back to it with the red-tipped bristles to add, in the top right corner, a —

“Oh, no.”

She drops her arm to her side. “What.”

“Well, what are you going to put there?”

“A star.”

“Hm.” There’s a thoughtful silence. “I see what you’re going for, but what if — just what if — you do one of those squiggle lines somewhere across the middle? That’s what people are doing these days…