I met an artist at a local art studio who had just moved to town. A man with ample silver-gray hair, a moustache reminiscent of William Saroyan, and an aura that says “I have done what I wanted to do; now I just play with colours on canvas.”
That was probably why I was attracted to him and his work.
“So you are retired too?” he asked. “I am sure you are having a good time since you look healthy.”
When I asked if he still paints for others, he said “No.”
“I paint because that is what I know to do, but I now do it for myself. For decades I burned the midnight oil to survive on what others would appreciate in my work. I also burned my candle at both ends as an artist in California and somehow I made it to an age when all is extra time I had not counted on having.”
“You have done a lot of burning” I teased him.
“Yes, but hope some of it did brighten people’s dark moments a bit” he pensively replied.
… That night, I searched for a century old poem without remembering the poet’s name. I had read the lines years ago and the conversation with the painter made me think about them.
The author was Edna St. Vincent Millay and the poem was published in 1918. The lines I recalled were:
My candle burns at
both ends;
It will not last the night:
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!
The Californian artist’s candle lasted more than a night—in fact decades as he said. And during this time, his works found walls in countless houses to “brighten people’s dark moments a bit.”
And the creativity of the artist did not get affected by the burning of that inspirational candle -- he is still painting, although more as an impulse than a survival need.
… Candles have inspired imagery in all forms of art as symbolic of the fragility of life yet representing beauty, coziness and surprising resilience to the drifts of our days.
There is a saying by Buddha that goes beyond these symbolisms regarding candles – it places the candle as a source of light and enlightment, philosophically taking the darkness of other candles away. It reads:
Thousands of candles
can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be
shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
... So as my first email to the artist, I sent him the above quote.
He replied with this:
“Buddha was a smart man! Yet I do not know if we can share happiness through art. We can share evasion; and we can share scars from wounds that can only be healed from inside out. The rest is to those who take my art home and try to find themselves in it.
You know? Of all those poetic and philosophical lines we know about candles, my favorite is from the late Welsh comedian Tommy Cooper who said:
Electricity is a
wonderful thing. Do you realise that if we didn't have electricity, we'd be
watching television by candle light?
In our phase of life, we need to remember that a candle is just goat fat and a wicker – don’t you agree?”
Indeed, I often do.
PS/ The photo at the top of the page is from my backyard, on a windy afternoon. The Pampas grass, native of South America, can be spectacular in growth following sustained rainfall.
To my eye, they looked like candles flickering with the wind.
November 16, 2022
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2022