This painting sat unfinished on my easel through December, January and February. I gravitated towards these light and cheerful colours as they reflected how I felt in November and before.
This painting sat on an easel in front of my bedroom window where I sat and listened to my mom take her last breath over the phone. Behind this painting, out the window, the coldest winter snap froze the trees and covered the garden with deep, heavy snow. So much snow, we could not drive anywhere. So much snow and cold, that our surroundings seemed enchanted in white crystals and silence. As though to say, I know, things are changing in a big way, there is love all around you, but there is no way to hide from, or ignore this.
These paintings with their joyful pinks and yellows seem to laugh garishly in the face of the dark things that happen today.
There are plans I made to live as best I could, full of cheer and bright colours. Steps I put in motion, and posting here, is one of those steps. Now, I stumble through these steps that I laid out before, because I do not yet know the best direction to forge a path in the world, the way it is now.
For now, I can only keep walking forward in the direction I set out before things got weird, then weirder. I do not want to make light of or disregard the things that are happening now. I watch in a different place than here. This place is a different compartment for me…and I come here for images that light up my insides. I put my inner joy here, along with my best assumptions and intentions.
I wish for peace for everyone, but I am learning, that wishing is not enough. I don’t know what to do right now, but I decided not to hide, quite so much.
