Goddess Minerva
Minerva, the great. Minerva, ageless. Minerva, the miracle. Minerva, my metamorphosis.
This is the right place. I found out from someone who’s been a patron of Spring Studio since the ‘90s that everyone who attends is the black sheep in their family. Anti-institutional and a ballast for old, real New York. Still in Soho. How does she do it?
“At this age you get to know a few tricks,” Minerva winks at me.
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Learning to draw the figure with Minerva is tuning into the otherworldly consciousness underlying your quotidian rituals. Your gestures signify more than your moods--they bear witness to how you govern your choices, even unwittingly. “You like to eat the dessert first,” she points out, squinting through her glasses.
My mapping is patchy with contradiction: rigid coils hiccuping throughout fragments of verisimilitude. The model’s upper body has contours but the bottom half I’ve wrought is questionable. (I recall the time my friend complained that I gave him no chin). His feet are nascent at best, and his legs, spindly. The body in its entirety overwhelms me; I like looking at the face.
“You’re like the bullfighter who goes straight for the spot between the eyes,” she goes on. I summon her for an intervention. Minerva starts to edit my lines with no hesitation, each stroke empathetic and committed. I look at the model before us daubed in darkness and light, I look at the cloud of her hands. Her gestures unfurl like the spirality of petals, enhancing your thoughts in a more freeing, circular movement. She pulls back and we look at the drawing together. The model is now rendered into Edenic grace through her vision. “Loosen the hand.”
“Okay, I’ll try to start with the appetizer next time,” I reply, knowing that I probably won’t.
Minerva laughs. “It’s a six course meal,” she reminds me.
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Another 5 minute pose. “Ah, very good. You’re a classicist,” Minerva comments as I lift up my charcoal and smear a stray line. I notice some smudges on her rosy cheek.
“What are you?” I ask.
“I’m a classicist, too. A romantic classicist.”
Her comment is a great equalizer (we all want to be more like Minerva). For a moment I am cast into the realm of divine pursuit, the same paint of the Impressionists dripping primary hues. I feel warm. The valor of rugged individualism is exposed as a myth; the only way out is in, way in, feel, as Minerva emphasizes, her hand scribbling in the air demonstratively. Don’t think, just feel.
I don’t ask her about the other variants of classicists.