Thursday, October 31, 2013

.0001

It took several weeks after Winnie's death for me to get back in the studio but I finally did it.
This first painting, entitled ".0001" is about the
fragility of all things and their impermanence.

Certain circumstances, namely death, can make one question everything. However this painting is not a far cry from some of the work I did before Winona passed away. I think it is imperative that we question everything, always. For we are not in control of nature; life nor death, even if we would like to think we are.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

hope. continued

I remember a time when I refused to get a cell phone and preferred being nearly completely disconnected to the rest of the world. Internet was a luxury then and I could barely define what the democratic party was let alone what war we were fighting or the rate at which glaciers were melting. I spent my weekends hidden in the forest somewhere, my summers on the road, my nights in the studio. You may have called me a coward, an introvert, a naive college student, and to a certain point I would agree. But there was something about not knowing that gave me knowledge or maybe it was just hope. It was a time when I made art for myself; it didn't require the utmost confidence and drive to be in the studio, it just was.  I just was.

What kind of hope did I have then? Sure there were all sorts of inner battles I was fighting at the time, (we all have something) but in some ways the not knowing gave me hope. The recent break up with my high school love was the worst tragedy I was aware of. I didn't know how it felt to hold a baby of your own, to see her grow out of your womb and into her own being. I didn't have the internet to constantly remind me of how climate change will effect my family's future. I wasn't carrying the scar of graduate school to tell me I wasn't a good enough artist. I didn't have things like facebook to tell me what I should fight for, who my friends are, what groups to join and how big Winona would be if she was still here with us. I didn't know how it felt to love and then lose.

I sometimes wish I could forget some of the things I have grown to know, that I could run off to the woods and hide, and shut out the sights and sounds of the world.  Yes there is climate change that is threatening the future of our kids. Yes, there is famine and disease, war, and a .001% chance of losing your beautiful baby girl to one extra 13th chromosone. There are all those things, but we have to take the ugly with the beautiful. The things I didn't know then and know now have made my life richer. Maybe that is what gives us hope, for if everything were beautiful we wouldn't know what it was like to lose, we wouldn't know how to hope. I'd like people to write more stories about hope.

Again, here, I can connect art with life. Life takes hope and courage, it is both ugly and beautiful. Walking into the studio takes hope. It takes courage. Art can be ugly, it can be beautiful, it is life. Life is art.


"The Hard Task of Hope"

Today is one of those days when I question the reality of hope. I have been unable to come to an answer as to where hope exists from the little that is left. I have searched roadways and skies, the backsides of leaves, barely clinging on to the branches that keep them afloat. I have searched smiles, truths and lies, questions and answers. for something. to keep. going.

"you fall seven times and you get up eight." Today I am tired of falling.  I want a hand to help me back up. I want a little taste of hope to pinch me in the back and say, 'it is going to be OK.'

The link below is a beautiful article written about "The Hard Task of Hope" but a father who lost his son.

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/mdmama/2013/10/the_hard_task_of_hope.html

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

row row row your boat

Some days the water can feel so deep and thick. It creeps up to my nose. I hold my breath. The water covers my eyes and I cannot see. The world is dark.

It is easy to let yourself become submerged in water, especially when you're standing still. When everything you thought you understood, thought you had, has fallen from your grasp and the whole world is still.

But even within that stillness there is something.

So, I pick myself back up. Dry myself off and hop back into that boat.

row row row your boat.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

hope.

Hope 
Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul, 
And sings the tune--without the words, 
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard; 
And sore must be the storm 
That could abash the little bird 
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land, 
And on the strangest sea; 
Yet, never, in extremity, 
It asked a crumb of me.


-Emily Dickinson