I Do/ I have/ I Am

In Saul Steinberg's painting of " I do, I have, I am" he portrays these three phrases into what he is. Each phrases placed differently from one another to represent a different meaning. The "I do" part is separated from the "I have" and the "I am" part. It sort of looks like the sun up in the sky. I see it as something that is up high in the sky and something that he wants to reach. He does what he does to reach a goal. The brightness can represent that that is where he wants to go and be in his career. A certain type of sucess in his life.
In the "I have" part of the painting I see it as things that he has. He hangs it up loosely off a old styled way of drying clothes, on the wire outside a person's home. From our discussion, yesterday in class, some people said dirty laundry and I agree with that. The artist depicts the "I have" part with broken up pieces of wood. Showing how he has bad parts about his life that hurt him in some way and that he still has it. My first initial thought was that the "I Have" part was that he has what he has and that it looks like he wants more out of his life. After hearing our discussion I leaned more to the dirty laundry idea but the painting can always go both ways.
For the "I Am" I think that was the easiest depiction of what the painter was trying to tell. The way he made it looked like the ground, I thought it meant that he was showing that he is molded by his roots. His roots in the sense of how he was raised and the people that help to molding who he is. The flower on top shows that he has grown into something "beautiful" or just what he is now. It may not be the best but he can be working out what he is.
In every painting there are always multiple meanings, it varies because people see things differently. They can see things differently because some people think deeply and some see it as just a painting and what it looks like. Anyone can put there thoughts into these paintings, but when it comes down to seeing if you were wrong or right just ask the painter. Sometimes painters don't know what they were getting across. What a person sees in there head and what they draw can be two different thoughts and ideas. So for this painting I don't know exactly what he was really trying to say.