146. Painting in Public

This week, another building burned in Portland. This is one that I loved and had definitely drawn before.

It was a cool old relic of Portland’s industrial past. Until about 2015, it stood next to its compatriots, other grain mill buildings that once processed wheat grown out in eastern Oregon. Here’s what the whole complex used to look like:

These buildings were supported by massive wood beams made from old-growth Douglas fir trees that were cut down a century ago. When the surrounding buildings were torn down around 2015, the beams were salvaged and re-milled into flooring. We moved to Portland shortly after, and we had some of that salvaged flooring put into our place. I wanted something old, and something connected to Portland’s history, that I could live with every day. There are little marks in the wood where the nails were, little imperfections. I love them.

So that’s why I’m so attached to the one building that’s still standing. I pass it on my morning run, and I take a lot of pictures of it for a painting I never quite got around to.

The fire (presumably started by squatters, but we don’t know) burned right down the middle of the building but did not topple it. As of this writing it’s still standing there, an empty shell. (Weirdly, the water tower, originally placed there for fire control, is also still there.) The morning after the fire, I took my easel and my gouache paints and finally did the painting I hadn’t gotten around to.

I often hear from people that they’re self-conscious about painting or drawing in public and they don’t want anyone to see what they’re doing.

So I’m here to tell you that no one has ever said anything the least bit critical to me, even when I was just a beginner. In fact, they tend to be a little too complimentary, telling me that my painting looks great when it is objectively in its ugly middle phase. But of course, folks are not really passing judgement on the art itself, they’re just giving you a high-five, a little atta girl, and the easiest way to do that is to say, “Hey that looks great!”

Because the fire happened the night before, everyone wanted to talk about it. From passers-by I learned that Amtrak service to Seattle was closed, because the tracks are too close to the building and nobody knows if it’s going to fall over. Someone showed me a video filmed from their balcony, alarmingly close to the flames. A little girl watched me paint because she likes to paint, and I told her she should keep it up. A couple of my urban sketching friends happened by, and we talked art supplies.

It was a nice sense of community, is my point. It felt good to get out there and paint this building I loved before it was gone entirely, and it also felt good to talk to other people who admired it and were sad to see it go.

When I’m out there with an easel or a sketchbook, making myself a little bit conspicuous, I become less of a private citizen and more of a public citizen. The fact that people think it’s okay to talk to me when I’m out with my easel is, in my opinion, a good thing. It’s as if I’ve become the unofficial ambassador of the thing I’m drawing, a kind of public information desk where anyone can stop by to ask a question or supply an answer.

Isn’t it nice, once in a while, to be that person? Someone who people can stop and have a chat with?

Give it a try, if you never have. You might like it.