Real Relationships

Over the past weeks my wife, Beth, and I have watched a few movies which portrayed relationships of various kinds. Three of these movies are classic triumphs: To Kill a Mocking Bird, with Gregory Peck; John Huston’s exposition of James Joyce’s The Dead, and Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen.

We also watched It’s Complicated with Meryl Streep, Alex Baldwin and
Steve Martin. We solved the complications of “It’s Complicated” by
turning it off. The complications of the other movies we were aware of,
because we have seen them before, and plan to see them again.
Complications such as these are part of people: without them we
wouldn’t be ourselves. I feel the same way about what I see as the
finest kind of artist and model relationships: one where artists and
models are fond of each other, and display their friendships both to
each other and to people who work with them. St. Paul tells us to
“great one another with a holy kiss.” If we’re ready to do that, we’re
ready to model and ready to draw.

6/07/2010