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In this Story by Richard Price, Lionel Dobie is an acclaimed artist who finds himself unable to paint before a gallery exhibition and uses his messy lifestyle to create artwork.

Life Lessons (2013) is an adapted American drama film, that follows Lionel Dobie, an acclaimed artist, who finds himself unable to paint before a major gallery exhibition and needs the confused and messy lifestyle of his relationships in order to create his artwork.—TownSpot.TV

Our main character is a tortured, hyper-masculine and hopelessly romantic artist: Lionel Dobie, an acclaimed abstract artist who finds himself unable to paint during the days before a scheduled gallery exhibition of his Current Artwork. Paulette is Lionel's assistant and former lover. Lionel is still infatuated with her, but Paulette wants only his tutelage, which makes things difficult since they live in the same studio-apartment. Paulette dates other people, including a performance artist and comedian.

These deliberate provocations on Paulette's part make Lionel insanely jealous-and fuel his creativity. Lionel and Paulette, it becomes clear, have been using each other: Lionel using her sexually, Paulette using him as a means of entry into the higher spheres of the Los Angeles social and art scene. Paulette wants to give up and go home to her parents but Lionel persuades her to stay because Los Angeles is where a painter needs to be.

Lionel pours his anxiety and repressed passion into his Artwork. Paintings around the studio-apartment show visual metaphors from relations past: stormy skies, burning bridges, and tormented imagery. Dobie's sexually frustrated energy is channeled straight onto the painting, and as the movie continues we see directly how each event influences the painting itself. By the end of the film, we've grown with Dobie's centerpiece and it's almost become another character.

Lionel realizes that he needs the emotional turmoil of his destructive relationships in order to fuel his art. At the art exhibit, Lionel meets another attractive young woman, a struggling painter. He persuades her to become his assistant and potentially his lover, beginning the cycle anew.

Our Story is by, Richard Price.