Journal | 10.31.2018 (Patreon)

"Enjoy...enjoy it. What an obnoxious thing to say. It's so obnoxious. It's a stupid thing to say...enjoy. And it's very reflexive! Once you start saying it, you'll say it all the time! 'Enjoy it, enjoy.' Stupid. I got the bill from a server, I say server cause you can't say waitress anymore it's server, I got the bill from the server. They said, 'Enjoy.' Yeah, I'm gonna enjoy this. I'm going to enjoy paying the bill right now. Enjoy that a lot. So reflexive, you'll say it about anything. Enjoy...it's like...Jesus loves you. How do you know? How do you know I'll enjoy this?! I might not, then what will you say?"

I've now been working with one of the most eccentric and entertaining artists I've ever met in my life for around two weeks. Each day he says something that I find wildly entertaining. 

"'If that's your dream, you should do it!' Well, who said it's my dream? And that has negative connotations? Just say that it sounds like a 'wonderful opportunity' not a dream? A dream. IF it's my dream. Only 'if.'"

Or,

"The stock market is going to crash. It crashes about once every ten years. The great thing about it happening this time is that it's the last time I'll have to live through it!"

"It's a lot harder than you think to die poor sometimes."

"She's a pontificator. That's what she does, she pontificates. She comes in to pontificate. 'Oh, that's nice, oh you did this nice,' she always says something nice first before the pontificating. A pontificator."

I once had just started a break (we do 20 minutes of posing, 5 minutes without posing and so on for a three hour session), and I peeked around the canvas to see the progress of the painting (a life size portrait of me), and he wildly began gesturing with all 5-10 of the paintbrushes and paper towel roll in hand, "Don't look at me while I paint!" I started to laugh. On my next break, I stood solemnly and stated, "Well, don't worry, I won't look at you while you're painting." And then he responds, while looking airily towards the windows, "That was just a joke."

I walked in one day and noticed he'd had a haircut, I said, "Your hair looks nice, did you get a haircut?" To which he responded, "Yeah, whatever, takes ten seconds." He paused then said, "I go in, they do this in ten minutes, and then I GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!"

Lukas has a medical degree (he is a practicing radiologist), went to law school for fun and graduated, he went to painting school at the The Florence Academy (my current main place of employment), and he's currently practicing to go to a conservatory in Chicago for violin performance. He knows 21 languages to some degree, has never been married or had children, and he's absolutely hilarious. He always has anecdotes to share, little instances of emotional paranoia from his social life, funny gossip, and strange life events like the time he accidentally bid $4400 on a painting he did not want instead of bidding $1200 on a painting that he did want - he spent quite a bit of our morning session pacing and hoping someone would outbid him on the one he did not want (they did). 

I'm currently preparing to go to an evening drawing class gig that he got for me. I told him that I'd now be modeling for them and he said, "Yeah" with a grimace. I asked if he liked them, and he said "No." So I laugh and ask why he went and got me a job with them when he does not like them? He just shrugged. Apparently they are safe enough though!

So, they are safe enough! 

I should post more updates about the things he says so I can remember them all.