Cassandra

It was just another day of the indentured servitude at the Piccolo Spoleto Outdoor Art Exhibition, warm but not as bad as it can get. Trapped like rats for seventeen days in a row, out in the elements, selling our wares. I guess God thought I needed a reminder of just how lucky I really am to have this opportunity, because just then a car was driving down Meeting Street. Inside was a passionate young man, full of love and hungry for adventure, with his mother at the wheel. That’s when he saw her from the passenger side window. A beautiful, floating woman, hovering far above the Earth, facing the street. My painting of Cassandra, on the outer wall of my tent, captured him from afar. He told his mom to stop the car and park up, which she did, obediently. 

She had learned by now, there was no arguing with Nick, once he put his mind to something. And he had decided in that instant that he had to have her. At the time, he didn’t know why he wanted her; he only knew that he did want her, very badly. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig suggests we know quality in an instant and can spend the rest of our lives explaining how and why we recognized it in the first place. Maybe Nick just liked that it was a pretty girl, because what warm blooded American boy doesn’t like a pretty girl, even though he probably won’t ever be able to have one, because he has Cerebral Palsy. He is as normal as any young man, but his body is a prison, “doing it, whatever it is.” His poignant words, which he was kind enough to share with me, describe his situation best:

“Let me out ot these chains please Jesus Christ
I know you let me live and you didn’t think twice
Did I sin in a past life, if so I’m sorry Christ
But
Let me out of these chains please Jesus Christ
I am on my knew pleading with you.
I am surrounded by lead.
I am supposed to be surrounded by ladies
Why did you give me a chance Lord? Give me a sign.
Let me out of these chains please Jesus Christ
Why am I in these chains, please Jesus Christ?
What is you plan for me in this life?
I believe in you.
I know when I leave I will be free from these chains
I will change out of this body into my spirit.
Right now I am on Earth and doing it, whatever it is.”

Nick has every reason to feel cheated, and still he loves God. When I was a young man, I couldn’t get the girl because I couldn’t think up the right thing to say, convinced I wasn’t good enough. What a pathetic, entitled waste of normality I was. But in all fairness, we all live in our purgatories. Some are self-made, others are foisted upon us. I believed Childhood Sexual Abuse defined me; I was its captive. After many years of hard work, it no longer defines me. In Nick’s case, there is no amount of work he can do to get the girl, even though he deserves the kindest, sweetest girl around. The mechanics would make it difficult at best. 

But none of this explains why Nick was drawn to this particular pretty girl in this particular painting? Joseph Campbell has some ideas about what might be at play here:

“Significant images render insights beyond speech, beyond the kinds of meaning speech defines. And if they do not speak to you, that is because you are not ready for them, and words will only serve to make you think you have understood, thus cutting you off altogether. You don’t ask what a dance means, you enjoy it. You don’t ask what the world means, you enjoy it. You don’t ask what you mean, you enjoy yourself; or at least, so you do when you are up to snuff.

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But to enjoy the world requires something more than mere good health and good spirits; for this world, as we all now surely know, is horrendous. ‘All life,’ said the Buddha, ‘is sorrowful’; and so, indeed, it is. Life consuming life: that is the essence of its being, which is forever a becoming. ‘The world,’ said the Buddha, ‘is an ever-burning fire.’ And so it is. And that is what one has to affirm, with a yea! a dance! a knowing, solemn, stately dance of the mystic bliss beyond pain that is at the heart of every mythic rite.”  -Joseph Campbell

Checkout Nick’s website: http://djwheelsart.com

I would add to the great sage’s observation with some from my own experience. I believe every work of art is made for a certain person; the challenge for the artist is to find that person. I find I must be both artist and matchmaker. But sometimes the stars align and the person finds the painting, through no effort of my own. The thing about Nick, he is more than his disability. Nick Cerreto is also a painter, an artist of true vision. He discovered painting when he was twelve. And he’s been painting and showing his work ever since. In fact, his work can be seen in person at Public Works, in Summerville, through July. Count me as a fan; I love his art, which brilliantly captures his triumph over his condition.

Nick with Cassandra

So, I like to think, as an artist, Nick is highly discerning and simply recognized a great work of art when he saw it. We all know the real artist is the one who receives the art, not the one who makes it. But I think the thing that really attracted him to my painting wasn’t the pretty girl floating above the Earth, or my great vision as an artist or even his highly discerning eye for art. It was something unseen, wrapped up and contained underneath the image itself, like a book that must be opened and read to be understood. Like Campbell, we turn to Greek Mythology for the answers to the unanswerable questions. The painting depicts Cassandra, the Greek beauty who was given the gift of prophesy by Apollo. But because she would not return his love, Apollo cursed her by making sure no one would believe her prophesies. Nick is sort of a modern-day Cassandra. Like her, Nick is gifted with insight and charm, knowing all the things most young man might know about love and life. But he will never fully realize his hopes and dreams, because of his disability — truly a cursed existence. This wonderful, precious human being is trapped inside a body that simply will not cooperate. He’s like a book whose cover is deceiving, that can only be opened with great difficulty. But it can be opened, by those with the compassion and patience, people like his mother and others who see beyond his disability and are filling his life and their own with a much deeper meaning. In reality, Nick is a better man than most of could ever hope to be.

I think Nick somehow recognized all that complexity and made an unconscious comparison between himself and Cassandra, all the way from the street. This is the miracle of art that happened that day.  What better way to explain our petty and profound sufferings. What better way to explain his deep connection to this painting. There’s a part of us that just knows.