Teeny Houses on Watercolor Produce

I once heard an interview with a musician who said never to make art with your romantic partners. It seemed odd advice, but I respected his opinion.

I was 18 then and impressionable. I believed those words for a long time and sought out romantic companions who did not share my interests. I kept my art separate from those people I called lovers.

I went on to marry a wonderful human, and computer programmer. We had two wondrous children. We watched all of Stargate the original series together. We played board games, and scrabble and cribbage. He baked, I cooked. We never, not once, made any sort of art together. He is a wonderful father, and a phenomenal co-parent. He supported me when I wanted to take up stand up comedy, and he stayed at home with our kids during the night so I could pursue that.

I had to choose between putting my children to bed and being at the club to sign up at 7pm. For years I had to leave home, my children, and the person I loved to pursue my art. Something had to give, and it was my marriage. We are still great friends, live next door to each other, and raise our children co-operatively and with kindness.

It has been twenty-four years since I heard that advice that lead me to choose someone with whom I did not make art.

It has been five years since I met someone who changed everything.

Today I sit painting strange watercolor vegetables and fruit. It is calming in a way that going out of my home to pursue my art and give my former partners space never was.

Twenty-four years later I have a partner who sits next to me, drawing tiny houses on the odd produce I create. We get lost in our art for hours, coffee getting cold and giggling at regular intervals. Our children make art with us, and I very rarely miss bedtime anymore.

My partner and I do not share an art style, they make small precise pencil art while my paintings are bright and garish and quickly done.

We are dissimilar in so many ways, and our common ground is the surreal, the silly and the unnecessary oddity of life.

At 42 years old I would like to rewrite the advice that musician gave me.

Find someone you can sit next to for hours, who sees the value in your art and who isn’t threatened by the joy it brings you. Find someone whose art makes you smile, and whose words make you tingle along your spine. Know that not every relationship needs to be romantic forever, that children and friendship can be their own reward and not everything has to be abandoned because one piece didn’t work out.

Before I met my current partner I never allowed myself the time to sit and paint. I didn’t see the value in the things I created. I felt mediocre at best. Now everything I paint brings me a bizarre joy. They gave me the space to find value in my own weird art.

Find yourself a fellow weirdo and do the things you love together.

Or don’t. What do I know, I’m just an artist who paints bright pineapples, peppers and avocados sitting next to a person who loves me for the broken bits of star I am, who lets me love them back, unabashedly, and who will draw small tiny perfect houses on my fruit.