Return of the Comeback
Time Space Warp #39
Hey — It’s Toffer.
I met my hero last weekend.
He wasn’t there. But his works were.
And somehow, that was more than enough.
Pablo Picasso.
Estimated read time: 4 minutes
For most of my life, he’s lived in my mind as the artist who broke all the rules and made us thank him for it.
A rebel with a paintbrush. A master of color, form, and chaos.
The kind of child who probably told his teacher, “The sun can be square” — and then painted it so persuasively, she had to agree.
I always imagined his genius as something wild and untamed.
Like he was painting straight from some mysterious internal fire the rest of us could only squint at.
But as I walked through the exhibit, I realized I had misunderstood him.
Because a lot of what we now call “Picasso” wasn’t conjured from nowhere.
He was studying. Tracing. Echoing.
He wasn’t copying — he was conversing.
With the past. With the masters. With the idea of what art could become next.
And as an aspiring artist myself, that struck something in me.
Maybe it’s not about creating something brand new.
Maybe it’s about listening. Looking.
Letting yourself be shaped by those who came before.
Not to be them — but to understand yourself better in the act of trying.
But then I turned a corner… and there it was.
Or at least, a version of it.
Lee Mingwei’s re-creation of Guernica, drawn entirely in sand —
same size, same stark force — quietly echoing Picasso’s most haunting work:
Guernica was painted in response to the bombing of a quiet town during market day.
Civilians, not soldiers. Chaos, not strategy.
And Picasso, originally planning a calm studio scene, changed course entirely.
What struck me most, standing before this recreation, wasn’t just the pain it held —
but the beauty it became.
Not beauty in the soft or comforting sense.
But beauty in the way it honored truth.
In the way it transformed anguish into something that asked us to keep looking — not away, but deeper.
Because art doesn’t just express pain.
It dares to make something meaningful out of it.
It doesn’t soften the edges — it gives them shape.
And in doing so, creates a kind of beauty that lingers.
Even now.
But then, there were the studies for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.
One of the most groundbreaking pieces in modern art — and even in fragment, you could feel the tension.
Every strange angle, every fractured face, born from pages and pages of sketching, doubting, exploring, trying again.
It took Picasso nine months and over 700 studies to complete this piece.
And that — more than the final result — is what moved me.
Behind the wildness was discipline.
Behind the genius was patience.
Behind the myth was a man who kept showing up, brush in hand, uncertain but curious.
That’s what I brought home with me.
Not the pressure to be great.
But the permission to keep going.
To study. To start over.
To follow the thread of wonder.
Because maybe it’s not the 10,000 hours that shape us —
but the 10,000 iterations.
The layers. The drafts. The quiet, stubborn returning.
I’m painting now, too.
And more often than not, I’m unsure of what I’m doing.
But I’m learning to trust that the beauty isn’t always in the finished piece —
sometimes, it’s in the moment you mix a color that surprises you.
In the sketch you thought was a mistake, but somehow, it stays with you.
Maybe that’s the work — to keep your eyes open, your hands moving, and your heart available.
Not to impress, but to express.
Not to arrive, but to return.
Over and over again.
Your Friend in Time,
Toffer
Love this one!