Painting a Picture and Designing a House
	Urmas Muru

Eesti keeles
	I would like to be an angel. I dream of my pious grandmother. She grumbles about the Jamaican girl who has moved into our house. The security guards are not happy about us having no cartridges at home. They in fact have the toy pistol of my childhood. I'm not going to give them a real gun. The whole thing is ridiculous. Grandmother has obviously exerted herself and is sleeping soundly. Some of her old cronies are still here, and the doctor. I drew the security guards a picture of the Jamaican girl. A swarthy curly-haired maiden. I refuse to believe any ill of her. Grandmother's envy has brought the security guards here. Countdown to War runs the LHV investment bank's web news. Share prices soar on the New York Stock Exchange. The commissioner of the project sends his drawing. Not a bad drawing, actually. A house, car, tree. First you think, then draw and then build. A drawing is somewhere in the middle. What about painting? A painting is also a drawing. But nothing comes afterwards. If one constructed something of metal on the basis of a painting, it would not be a house. I'm not sure why I mention metal here. Metal is inside the painting. Is acrylic paint then inside houses? Buildings are big and they hold a lot. Consequently, acrylic paint as well. If we place paintings above projects, we can, at best, talk about them as a trajectory of people's movements. Paintings are therefore trajectories of movement. But what if the canvas only has one spreading blotch? For some reason I'm talking in the present as if about a living process. Enough. What about designing by the method of pouring?
	I am not cheerful nor am I sad. It is best that way. In my dream I am flying in a helicopter. Partly even without it. Someone tries to introduce the topic of the fear of heights. This is not my problem. My problem is that when I fly low I will be caught. Caught by whom? Don't know exactly. The whole atmosphere is like playing squash. Must strive to win, otherwise the opponent does not understand you. Yes, making yourself understood is a real problem. "You are a patriot." "Sounds great." Such sparkling sentences are said to me in daytime. Do people say "you are a patriot" when they don't understand someone? Is it necessary to understand others in the first place? Maybe it's better not to paint. A friend calls and says he is going to buy a flat in an Italian tax haven, and invites me to see it. Information must be tackled in a complex way, as much as possible. Are my latest Brazilian paintings doing that? Around one hundred people got killed during the festival week. Maybe I should have shown some interest. Were all these people lying in the streets dead or were they dreaming? If dreaming, then what do they dream about? The good thing about dreams is that they are very specific. They are like completed works. Daily events, on the other hand, are the basic material out of which a work must be shaped. That's the problem.
	Dreams sometimes forebode evil. But it doesn't really matter. I am very strict on them myself. The young film artist Mariann tells me about her dream. In her dream she was broken. A hole appeared in her body and she looked into herself. A powerful dream indeed. Honestly. For those whose boundary between dream and wakefulness has always been thin. Mariann asks me to the cinema to watch a horror movie. Its plot revolves around a video clip. Luckily we go at the wrong time, and cannot see the film. I don't like films that revolve around a specific thing. It's a stand-off. It imprisons my thoughts and imagination. Nothing can be important enough to have the entire story revolve around it.
	Is a person present when his thoughts materialise? In my dream, something invisible grasps me. The decision is born quickly and without hesitation: I'd better hold on to myself. Everything is too interconnected. A view of a bystander is needed. I go to the exhibition of PŠrsimŠgi and the Pallas School. Why is PŠrsimŠgi exhibited now? Why wasn't he displayed in the early 1980s? All good things are concealed. Sometimes you don't even recognise them when they are right under your nose. Maybe we should show more interest? The pencil given me by the waitress begins to attract my attention. Is it because it's red? Human activity is subjected to rules. People move, sit, look, talk. All in a similar way. Maybe they see differently? Someone flexes his muscles. He is attracted to the waitress. What would he be prepared to do to get what he wants? The same as others? All human beings are attentive. They hear and see more than it might seem. The girl sitting a bit further off has fallen in love. With whom? The connections are complicated. That place radiates energy. I must leave. I am expected elsewhere. Am I expected? A new life starts upon opening the eyes. They just have to be closed before. I cannot close mine because I am curious. Listening is in fact also suitable to satisfy curiosity. If I am curious, that is. Do you believe that this is nothing more than paint there on the canvas?
	| Estonian Art 1/03 (12) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2003 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 |