Goodbye summer
We are about to leave the hot heavy days behind and get carried into winter on the wonderful crisp breezes of Autumn.
At the moment my little town and so many everywhere are doing the hard work of drying out from Ida. The pandemic’s shadow still stretches wide. All the while our world keeps spinning like mad. Making us all dizzy…as usual. I and maybe you are a bit withered by it all.
Still… when I look around at my little inner circle I see hints of fresh things on the horizon. Mud wiped away, seeds sprouting, travelers wandering about again, magazines pressed, homes created & recreated, trees down and trails cleared, books bound, podcasts casting, projects pivoting in all directions and on and on. I’m sure it’s just a bit of my own minds eye but everyone I know seems to be on the edge of something!
In the studio…I’ve been working on a large commission. Along with continuing the Eden Daughters series and finishing up a swirlscape mini. Also, exploring experiments with works on paper and some camera creativity.
I’ve had a few short getaways…glamping and rambling through fields of summer while trying to free up some soul space in my mind to contemplate the future. I can feel myself shifting into unfamiliar terrain. It’s a strange mix of disintegration and expansion. Like being on the edge of something…probably the big 50 on the horizon next summer;)
This painting “Butterfly Birth” from my vault is a flashback from 2016. It actually goes back further because for so many reasons…it took me oh so many years to finish it!
Almost everyone who sees this painting gets intrigued by the wing like shapes emerging from the corner. I think it’s the delight at finding something familiar and recognizable in an abstract work. It’s like seeing castles in clouds. Maybe we crave the familiar to anchor us in the seas of chaos.
It wasn’t intended to be a butterfly.
But…once it showed up as one it became one.
For me this piece has always been interesting because of everything happening around that “wing” pulling itself free. There is shaky and stringy energy in that mix of murky and intense color. It always reminds me of what might actually happen inside a mysterious, mushy and most likely messy cocoon. It has that strange combo of disintegration and expansion. That sense of becoming by unbecoming. All very much of what I think of when I think of a season of change.
Hope all is well on the edges of your own endeavors…till next time!
ps…scroll all the way down to see my garden visitor who inspired me to revisit this painting & to read a Mary Oliver poem…that more than once pulled me through some very long days.
“Art is important for it commemorates the seasons of the soul, or a special or tragic event in the souls journey. Art is not just for oneself, not just a marker of one’s own understanding. It is also a map for those who follow after us.”
“The Black Swallowtail
The caterpillar, interesting but not exactly lovely, humped along among the parsley leaves eating, always eating.
Then one night it was gone and in its place a small green confinement hung by two silk threads on a parsley stem. I think it took nothing with it except faith, and patience.
And then one morning
it expressed itself into the most beautiful being.”
