Meanwhile, I just couldn’t keep my hands off of the computer. I think I did try to resist, but a coquettish wink of the hard drive light ignited an unbearable lust. The youthful allure of new technology filled me with a sense of limitless possibilities, and when duty and obligation drove me back to the easel, it was the computer which inflamed my imagination.
My preoccupation grew to full-blown obsession. Alas, artists have a very high capacity for self deception and I rationalized my reckless indulgence by telling myself that computers were the future, and I had better be a part of it. Oh, I knew well enough that my liaison would never give birth to art I could actually hold in my arms – our offspring would be only data stored on disks, but I dismissed that as an antiquated conceit. Anyway, people were already producing too many unwanted paintings in a visually crowded world – digital media consumes fewer precious resources. Besides, I said, the computer would NEVER replace the easel, it would only ENHANCE our relationship.
Yeah, right…. how could my plain wooden easel compete with this digital ingenue? The computer was everything the easel was not; nubile, forgiving, flexible and different from anything I had experienced in art. The way the computer responded as I slowly teased out its innermost secrets made me feel powerful and, well…virile.
Predictably, as my involvement deepened I became increasingly impatient with the easel, constantly finding fault with its limitations and demands for attention. I begrudged any time spent away from the computer and, looking back, I blush at all of the absurd excuses I made to be with the computer. During the day, when I was supposed to be working, I would even sneak out to buy new software and peripherals for her to try on for me at night – and believe me, money was no object.
Although I thought I was being discreet my obsession was apparent to all. Conversations with friends and colleagues would always turn to the computer and out of nowhere I would launch into passionate harangues about the virtues of digital images. When anyone would venture polite concerns about the impermanence of the medium I would be contemptuously dismissive. So what, if all my labors didn’t produce an actual art object? In the applied arts, I would condescendingly remind them, the only thing that matters is how the image is used.
Sadly, my behavior was tolerated and even encouraged by others who had similarly strayed. I found succor on internet mailing lists, chat rooms and web sites dedicated to every sort of digital fetish. As days away from the easel lengthened into weeks the approval and attention of my new "friends" would help dull pangs of conscience, but when guilt finally got the better of me I would crawl back to the easel hoping to pick up where we left off. I unfairly blamed the easel for the uncomfortable strangeness that had grown between us and became angry when my brushes proved stiff and unresponsive. At first, I could with considerable effort rekindle our old feeling of comfortable intimacy. Eventually, I didn’t even try.
Even worse, I would shamelessly take things the easel and I had done together and give them to my new love. When I needed a particular texture I couldn't quite wring out of the computer I would simply scan a cherished old painting and casually use it for a digital image. I was playing both sides of the fence, but I was getting what I wanted and I just didn't care.
Little by little a perverse dependence developed. I mean, now that I had been with the computer how could I possibly attempt a drawing without being able to instantly resize, move and distort? I didn’t realize it at the time, but the ease with which the computer’s "undo" button forgave all of my mistakes had made me sloppy. I had convinced myself that the ability to take chances without having to worry about ruining the painting freed my creativity, but such "freedom" can come at the expense of craft. The anything-goes immediacy of the computer began to undermine my confidence that I could ever return to the rigorous demands of the easel.
Not surprisingly, I ignored the computer's glaring faults, such as its stubborn refusal to exactly replicate my favorite painting effects, its awkwardness in drawing, its maddening freezes and crashes, its slovenly tangle of cables and its almost pathological need to always be told exactly what to do.
Any sensible person could have predicted that when my ardor cooled a little regret would set in. Now, catching a lingering waft of turpentine somewhere in the studio stirs aching waves of regret. Rubbing my hands over the richly textured surface of a painting calls to mind the struggles and raucous physical pleasures of putting brush to canvas, pencil to paper. I long for the connection to my art that I felt when stretching canvases, gessoing boards, mixing paint, and cleaning brushes.
Still, I am committed to the computer – I’m in way too deep to change that, but the easel was always there for me. Maybe too late I realize that I still love the easel. Will my easel have me back? I know things will never be quite the same between us, but we've been through too much together to throw it all away. I wonder, would it be indecent of me to suggest a mŽnage ‡ trois?