White Washed

I don't really remember much about the Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I remember reading it, but I was a kid, and being that so many years have passed, most of the details are lost. (Interestingly, when I taught Huckleberry Finn last semester, the students said they preferred Tom Sawyer to Huck Finn. I remember enough to know that I disagree with them).

The scene I remember most is the one where Tom is white washing the fence and then tricks Huck into doing it for him by telling him how much fun it is. It is a complete rip off of the Brer Rabbit story, but that is neither here nor there.

I have been thinking about white washing and the many metaphors within such an action. I'll leave aside the obvious racist possibilities, because I want to think about white washing in terms of paint and color.

What happens when we cover over something? When we cover up? Are we protecting? Escaping? Beautifying?

I've been thinking about and shopping for art lately. Sometimes I play around with paint. In the above pictured thing, I tore up pieces of poems, stuck the pieces on a canvas, painted them in colors, then rubbed white paint over the color. Then I wiped away just enough of the white to see the words and colors through it. I'm not an artist by any stretch, but there is something in the process that I enjoy, even when the product must be hidden away or destroyed.

Still. I come back to white washing: the covering of a surface with diluted white paint to make it pretty without using too much paint. A temporary fix? An exercise in discipline?

No point here really. I just wonder if Huck found something in the action of washing the fence that Tom missed. Maybe not. But I, unlike my students, like Huck better than Tom.