When life gives you lemons, make mullets

Let’s face it, there’s really no excuse, is there? If you want to get from point A to point B, just follow the directions and everything will come out alright.

That turkey you want to roast? Just buy the right bird, season it according to the recipe, check the temperature and the time, and you’ll be fine.

That deck you want to add to the back porch? Just set the foundation to code, buy the right lumber and screws, measure twice and cut once, and you’ll be fine.

That new dance you want to learn? Just pick the right YouTube video, wear the right shoes, move the lamps and vases to the next room, and you’ll be fine.

But what if you want to go off script? What if you want to create something for which there is no manual, no checklist of directions to follow? How will things go when you take a hard turn to the left and try to find your own way from point A to whatever point it leads you to?

What could possibly go wrong?

Nature itself offers countless answers to that question, doesn’t it? After all, how many quirky critters of the ancient world never made it onto the Ark? Where are all the dinosaurs, the unicorns? We’ll never know why they never got the boarding schedule, but somewhere along the way they took a hard left turn, missed the boat, and now they’re history.

Fortunately, humans are still here thanks to Noah, who followed directions down to the cubit when he built the Ark.

But what about those quirky humans who insist that they want to take that hard turn to the left and find their own way from point A to some unknown point of their own imagining? What about the artists, the sculptors, the musicians, the writers? Is there any guarantee that everything will come out alright when they go freewheeling with their craft?

You might think that an established artist who has practiced a craft for decades would be well beyond making a mess like that, but you would be wrong. Ask any artist, and if they’re honest, they’ll tell you. True creativity leads to a lot of dead ends that never make it to the Art-Ark and survive to show their face to the world.

But what then? What do artists do with the flawed unicorns and dodos they have created? When it all comes out a mess, what then?

I learned the answer to that question from Southwest Florida artist Tara O’Neill. I had seen a new painting of hers online, but not in person, and when I finally saw it right in front of my eyes at a recent art fair, I was astounded.

The painting depicts a school of fish swimming in a graceful swoop from the upper right corner down to the bottom and off to the left. There are dozens of them, each of slightly different size thanks to the perspective of a large school of fish at different distances from the eye.

But what is most amazing about the school of fish is that each one is painted as if it were a work of art itself.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

She shrugged and smiled, and then she explained that each fish was cut individually from a “failed” painting, then glued onto a fresh canvas. She had created a number of paintings that never got from point A to point B the way she wanted them to, and after putting them off to the side and wondering what to do with them, she finally took a scissors and cut them into little fishes. Dozens of them. Each of them a perfectly original creature with scales that might suggest leaves on a tree, or clouds in the sky, or lilies on a pond….

“I call it ‘Mullet Rodeo,’” she said. “People think they’re sharks, but they’re mullets.”

And what could be more fitting than that? Ask any serious fisherman in Southwest Florida about their hierarchy of fish, and they’ll start at the top of the list with tarpon, cobia, redfish, snook or a dozen other fish depending on whether they fish the reefs or backwaters.

But mullet? They’ll smile and say, “Yeah, they’re fun to eat at Stan’s Pub during the Mullet Festival while you watch the ladies dance the Buzzard Lope. But as a valued gamefish? Nope.”

Mullets are pretty much at the bottom of the barrel, the kind of schooling fish caught in large numbers in nets, about as glamorous an angling trophy as a sardine would be. And how many serious anglers do you know with sardines mounted over the fireplace?

And so what would be a more appropriate image for an artist to create from all those bottom-of-the-barrel failed paintings that never found their way over the fireplace, and have been just sitting around the house, gathering dust?

It takes a quirky artist like Tara O’Neill to prove there’s no excuse for failure. Instead, find a way to make a masterpiece of all those canvases that turned out to be lemons.

Because — who knows? — maybe mullet fish were never part of the Original Plan at all. And when all those unicorns and dinosaurs turned out to be unfit to board the Ark, maybe the Creator was the first one who decided that when life gives you lemons, just chop them up and make mullets.

Creators of all sorts work in mysterious ways.

 

 

 

TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at [email protected]