It came in cans.

To any “artist” of the 1970’s who didn’t paint or silkscreen, fixative was an essential tool in every materials kit.

Sprayed across the surface of any graphite, charcoal, Conte crayon, or pastel drawing what otherwise smudged easily at the slightest touch would be rendered impervious.

I can’t recall what toxic cocktail was required to formulate the product – probably a solvent, some silicone and, of course, a drying agent; but, once the potent smell dissipated, each finished piece was sure to be protected from all invaders, both foreign and domestic, and into perpetuity.

Yes. The smell.

During that era, there were plenty of aromatic fumes. Mineral spirits, the chief deterrent to painting for me, was nauseating and, used to clean both paint and silkscreen ink, produced headaches and diarrhea. Permanent markers would be found decades later to cause kidney and liver diseases. Spray paint was probably a neurotoxin. And, the list went on. In order to make something beautiful, artists had to descend into the pit of outgassing poison.

Enter the digital age. Now, the only real known contaminant is blue light, emanating from the screens of any number of painter products. Even the coloration was now ensconced inside the ever increasing sophistication of the all-in-one printer.

But, back in the day, any work of art not incorporating actual paint was produced by hand using concrete, earthen substances and preserved by a single, aerosolized, rattling can of fixative.

I’d made my share of what were called “finished” drawings. Most of these took hours to complete, under the watchful tutelage of college level instructors. Give me a nude human in the middle of the room, and I could stay focused, first for seconds, then minutes, and finally however long it took ’til completion. I was a twenty-something – virginal, naiive, impressionable, and gullible – but, I had no known emotional problems. My ability to concentrate on completing works of art was just driven by what anyone might call selective, heightened desire.

Enter obsessive-compulsion. That would appear, a decade later, after the Swine flu vaccine and its subsequent panel of allergic reactions.

Dad had expressed symptoms of OCD. But, we’d hardly given them a serious nod; his need to check the door lock five or six times, well, that was just Dad, being quirky. Repeated visits to the bathroom mirror to feel and examine his nostrils; again, probably boredom on that one day off from cutting hair at the shop.

I wouldn’t know that OCD could sort of smolder in the first decades, provoked only by stressors. I couldn’t know that life itself would intensify these, in spades.

But, my first serious relationship break up would set a spotlight on obsession like something out of a horror movie. Could I stop circling his block in my car, accelerating faster each revolution, vitals escalating? Pre-ceding email and text, how many letters would I draft and copy and stamp and send? And, well before answering machines, how many times would his phone ring before he’d yank it from the wall?

OCD invades every aspect of interpersonal exchange. Every business arrangement. All social plans. It lies in wait, to sabotage anything worth sustaining.

Lately, instead of ruminating over the more typical repetitious thoughts, I’d been taken to dwelling on the syndrome itself. What caused obsessive compulsion? Were there catalysts? If so, how to intercept them? Perhaps, if confronted, there could be some welcome neutralization?

I’d read a paper, awhile back, and written about it. There were brain chemical deficits, but whence had they arisen? Rather than replace what was missing, why not get at the root cause?

My primary symptom, of recent date, had been fixation. Something, or someone, would captivate my imagination. Accompanied by mild euphoria, I found joy in riding this. But now, as the much older woman, I could recognize that the object of my fixation was neither responsible either for my actions as motivated OR for defining them; in short, the object, including any desirable traits my mind had assigned, was actually secondary. It was the fixation, itself, which both fueled my energy, drove my behavior, and provided the sought after experience. I had become slave to the fixative.

The conventional kind still comes in a can. For sale at any craft store, their supply can be updated anytime.

Fine art restorers likely have a product which unfixes the surfaces of ancient finds. For something that will liberate me, and release whatever is worthy deeply embedded beneath, I’m still waiting.

Here’s hoping it smells like candy.

.

.

.

.

Copyright 12/7/24 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. No copying, in part or whole or by translation, permitted without written release by the author, whose name appears above this line. Thank you for writing your own story, instead.