The Versatile Master Artist

”Amy? It looks quite like her.”

To the assistant, folded-ear cats all look similar. The only difference is between being a bit fatter or thinner.

He actually couldn’t see what was special about the cat painted by Lady Anya, but he obviously knew she was talking about that cat.

”Tony is a compassionate child, and Amy is a cat filled with love. Dr. Jin thinks there’s not much hope, but I still want to try painting Amy.”

”Frankly speaking, I’m part of the Dog Party. I always felt that cats are somewhat indifferent to humans and never truly become domesticated. But Amy completely changed my understanding of cats as pets. I also want a cat that is as affectionate.”

Anya shook her head.

”You say my painting looks like her, but I feel I’ve painted the Amy in my heart, which surely is not Tony’s Amy, otherwise his reaction wouldn’t have been so lackluster.”

She hugged her own arms.

After a minute or two of hesitation, the artist, with a girlish pout, said: ”Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

”Indeed, it doesn’t matter. Tony is already forty-one, and when facing a forty-one-year-old autistic patient, all we can do is try our best and leave the rest to fate. Initially, this invitation stemmed from Dr. Jin’s immature suggestion. Perhaps painting knife painting might not have any effect on Tony at all.”

The assistant comforted: ”Queenstown is still a beautiful place. You could treat it as a one or two-week vacation here, not sure if you’re interested in the weekend...”

”Huh? What are you talking about?”

He was halfway through inviting the young lady when Anya frowned, showing confusion.

”Uh?”

”You may have misunderstood. When I say it doesn’t matter, I mean it’s fine if I don’t paint well because there are still the two masters, Borges and Detective Cat, involved in the creation. No matter how the ’Oil Painting’ magazine evaluates it, compared to them, I’m just providing a starting point.”

Lady Anya’s eyes sparkled with little stars of anticipation: ”I’m very curious about what answers these two artists will give.”

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Borges was entirely different from the gallery’s co-founder who appeared full of charm, his age was only slightly younger than Jean Arnou, but his appearance was already like an old man.

He also didn’t go to Jean Arnou’s studio to create, nor did he request a specially renovated studio.

Professor Boggs only asked for the respective easel and art supplies to be delivered to the guest bedroom on the third floor.

As the assistant and Anya were talking, the old man was slowly selecting a record from a pile of old folk records placed on the top shelf of a bookcase.

Once the needle dropped, slow-paced lyrical music began to play from the old-fashioned phonograph, mixing with the sapphire-like lake outside the window.

The music was leisurely, and Professor Boggs’ movements in front of the canvas were equally unhurried.

Like a slow-motion video shot at 60 frames per second but played back at 24 frames, everything in the room appeared calm and unhurried.

Even the cute white folded-ear cat, unwanted by Tony but taken in by Professor Boggs, lay lazily napping on the windowsill.

Western university society.

In terms of job design, the rare ratio corresponding to roughly 1:9 with ordinary professors is that a tenured professor is a creature standing atop the food chain.

Before attaining tenure, there are various teaching KPIs, assessments, competitive research resources, and political struggles within the campus.

There’s also the risk of being kicked out of the university due to poor teaching performance.

Regardless of East or West.

Decent academic positions in universities are always in high demand, highly competitive, with a mid to low-tier state university lecturer position possibly receiving applications from many top Ivy League doctoral students.

But once you become a tenured professor, the pace of life immediately slows down.

The so-called meaning of ”tenure” is.

As long as he doesn’t commit a crime, doesn’t sexually harass students, doesn’t engage in blatant racial discrimination or academic misconduct, damaging the school’s reputation, he is invincible in the realm of lying flat. The school has almost no performance demands on him, and he will never be fired or dismissed.

Professors at engineering schools may still have the pressure to secure millions of US dollars in funding from the school for experiments to sustain their research.

Professors of literature and art subjects can directly indulge themselves if they wish.

Brooklyn Art Academy isn’t a particularly prestigious art school, but Professor Boggs still has a base salary of 140,000 US dollars plus various allowances and stipends.

They offer a flexible working schedule, an additional five-week vacation each year, and every four years, a seven-month paid travel vacation.

The so-called work is generally 2.5 hours of teaching per week, and spending time in his small studio with a few students who show interest and wish to dedicate time to painting knife painting, a niche field, and make their mark.

Invitations to various art conferences and exchange activities are, of course, perpetually filling his work inbox.

However, Professor Boggs is long past the age where he would be thrilled to plan how to travel on public funds to France or Switzerland for free skiing.

Too many vacations can also make one weary.

Now, only very few proposals can still excite him, making his aging heart beat vigorously like a twenty-year-old’s.

Such as Jean Arnou’s invitation this time.

Or the previous curatorial proposal from the Metropolitan Museum.

”Hmm... Detective Cat.”

The arm holding the painting knife paused lightly for a few seconds.

The old man let out a sigh without clear meaning, then resumed painting at his unique 0.5x rhythm.

The professor’s hand movements were like an elder practicing tai chi, yet the formation speed of the patterns on the linen canvas was hardly slow. In a serious comparison, it was even three points faster than Lady Anya’s animal portraits on the walls downstairs.

In the art field, speed is not pursued; painting quickly does not necessarily equate to painting well.

Generally speaking, painters who can form images faster than ordinary people typically fall into two categories, either extremely reckless or extremely confident.

His movements aren’t particularly fast.

Yet they are incredibly precise and steady.

The painting knife itself is hard to control, and even when ordinary art students use the painting knife to modify or revise their work, the blade will leave indentations on the canvas from the pressure of the paint and the metal.

These markings from the painting knife can sometimes be kept to provide a unique texture to the canvas, while unnecessary ones would be retouched away.

Professor Boggs completely bypassed the process of modifying and retouching.

In his mind, there’s a complete map, determining where each stroke of paint should begin and end, whether thin or thick, light or dark, completely enveloped within.

An entire oil painting, ready in Professor Boggs’ mind, resembled a computational model analysis, dissected into hundreds of painting knife paths.

He simply needed to follow 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... efficiently and quickly paint it.

No,

Using the analogy of a computer for someone truly standing at the pinnacle of the painting knife field seems too mechanical and rigid.

Even though painting knife painting is indeed a very tiny temple.

Before the abrupt appearance of Detective Cat, Professor Boggs was always the largest golden Bodhisattva in this little temple.

Every drawing tool is an extension of the artist’s thinking, a captivating ocean.

Most artists choose to use paintbrushes as vessels carrying them towards their dreams, like Lady Anya, playing and frolicking along shorelines across oceans in bikinis, attempting to blend waters into her unique strait.

Few are like Professor Boggs.

Since childhood in countryside communities, every morning, he found it entertaining to use the back of the spoon to spread jam, milkshakes, and his grandmother’s cooked runny egg yolk creating various patterns on breakfast toast, he formed an inseparable bond with expressing creative thoughts using thin metal surfaces.

As a youth, he transformed into a fish diving off the cliff of painting knife into its depths, aspiring to explore the deep ocean’s beautiful scenes.