we have turned into my parents. on sundays, when we have no other plans, we take sunday drives. yes…we are those people…the ones who seemingly have no place to be and are wandering around the backroads in the countryside, breathing in deep breaths of freshly mowed grass and blowing kisses at horses out grazing.
WHITE SUN 18×48 mixed media
wisconsin countryside looks like this morsel AND it looks like the full painting of WHITE SUN. perfect fields manicured with crops and fences and dirt readied for fresh planting. gorgeous. there is a specific spot out-in-the-county…we drive past…and i wonder if this is the beautiful spot that david had in his mind when he was painting.
the quiet and not-so-quiet moments of comforting. your child. your friend. your partner. when they see the storm coming and you are there. when the storm is raging around them and you are there. when the eye of the storm gives false pause and you are there. when the tides pull back and regain momentum and you are there. when the storm has finally passed, the debris is fierce and you are there. when the rebuilding starts and you are there. the storm – physical or emotional – does not have to be endured alone.
when i see images of mountains these days, i naturally think about kirsten and becky. The Girl is living the out-in-the-high-mountains life and the photographs she sends me are nothing short of stunning. i love every moment i spend out there, so i can appreciate wholeheartedly her finding her “place”.
when i was little, we used to go to the mountains in upstate new york. my sweet momma and poppo would rent a cabin in a state park and we would travel up there; they would always allow me to take a friend – most of the years this was susan. i was the youngest by FAR (haha! are you reading this, seester?) so i was the only one left in the house. i was always thrilled to have my siblings’ families with us as well. my nieces and nephew were adorable. plus heather was the perfect foil on the mountainside beaches (and long island beaches as well); as a toddler she flirted with every cute boy around every time i took her there. she was with me a lot as a little girl; i took her everywhere in my little vw bug, especially in the summer. nothing like a little girl who would seemingly deliberately throw the frisbee onto the next blanket where a cute boy was sitting and listening to his transistor radio. what a fun way to meet ‘people’. wink!
later in life, my parents rented condos in the mountains of tennessee and the whole family joined them there. sunsets behind the big deck of the clubhouse, shrimp boils in the field, frisbee and hiking. those are treasured memories.
this image MOUNTAIN IN YELLOW SKY reminds me of every good mountain memory. its warmth, its simplicity. both appeal to me. the really funny thing is that this is just a mere morsel of one of david’s paintings. the painting TOGETHER ON THE BEACH is where i found this and extracted it to create a whole new image. when i asked david where i could find this canvas in the studio the other day, he told me he had painted over it. what?! what was he thinking?! fortunately, i still have the image i took of it and have created a canvas art print of that painting and a close-up of it as well.
MOUNTAIN IN YELLOW SKY…just a little piece of TOGETHER ON THE BEACH. both simple. both dreamy. both beautiful.
david’s painting SHARED FATHERHOOD makes me weep. it is a powerful painting of two fathers tenderly and humbly holding their baby. it is love in a pure form. it makes me think of my son, The Boy. i can see him in this painting and the possibility of him choosing one day to share fatherhood.
SHARED FATHERHOOD, mixed media 39.5″ x 51″
in the very corner of this painting is the morsel i chose for today. a doorway. or is it a window? either way, it struck me as a morsel image, especially in the context of this painting.
so many figurative doorways/windows, so little time…. is it a doorway into acceptance? into inclusion? into openness? into home?
we sat this morning, over early coffee, and talked about our perception of ourselves. how we can’t see that we exhibit the very things we tout we aren’t. or, conversely, how we aren’t (in whole) the things that we tout we are. how scary is that? it’s human. we ponder and perseverate over the things we believe. and we realize in moments of self-judgement that, yet again, we have a view of ourselves that is perhaps somewhat inconsistent with who we are. that goes both ways, however. the times we believe we are not enough, we are incomplete, we don’t measure up – those times are also inconsistent with who we are.
the doorway in – to acceptance of where we are, what we have been through, where we are going – to learning more – to growing – to knowing we are held in grace – to forgiveness of others and ourselves – to trying again tomorrow – to home, a place of as much gratitude and peace we can muster and then even more – this is a doorway/window in to shared fatherhood (read: parenthood) of the world, where each of us is responsible to do our best, bring our best, try our best.
my husband is a painter. of course, you know that. his studio is steps away from mine, steps away from our office, steps away from the coffee pot. what that means is that i can just pop in at any time to see what he’s painting, to chat, to have a cuppa or bring down a couple glasses of wine, to throw myself in front of paintings he is about to cover over with a swath of new paint.
what’s really fascinating is the process of his painting. i will walk down and find pieces on the wall or the easel that speak to me and he will tell me that he is “no where neeeeear done.” he takes pictures along the way and i scam them onto my camera roll for future use, not willing to let go of the resonance of one of the along-the-way iterations of a painting.
this week is a perfect example of that. he was in the middle of a painting – a follow-up to earth interrupted I – when i went downstairs to chat (read: procrastinate doing whatever it was i was supposed to be doing at the time.) the image and color screamed out at me. i couldn’t beLIEVE he was going to cover it all up with more paint. the process was so striking. take a moment to just really look at these process shots and the morsel i chose and breathe them in:
process morsel
process morsel
morsel of a process morsel – held in process
and yet, the finished painting earth interrupted II is a stunning, stunning, stunning canvas. it belongs somewhere to get its due. it makes me feel like the universe is weeping for the earth. it makes you pay attention to it. i am humbled by how truly magnificent this painting is.
earth interrupted II, mixed media 48″ x 34.5″
each week i design products from each of the days in our melange. some of these are cartoons, some just words, some lyrics or song titles and some are david’s paintings. i have the creative latitude to choose morsels of his paintings and design from there…a enviable starting point for someone who loves flexibility. this week is a sort of brain stretch. with the exception of designing leggings, where i used both of the morsels on this page, the morsel i have used in design is a morsel of a morsel process shot of earth interrupted II (i said it was a brain stretch.) it is called held in process and is a beautiful (and absolutely timely) image on its own. how odd that it is not actually the painting, but is underneath the painting, a layer of earth interrupted II.
it makes me wonder if we ever think about how layered everything is, everyone is. what is beneath the surface…a richness we may never know, a history we can’t necessarily comprehend. where we have all come from is woven color and texture and light and darkness, swaths of paint and attempted erasures that would cause other people to stand in front and call out to us, “no! don’t erase that! it’s beautiful! it’s important! it speaks to me.” we are all held in process.
there is maybe nothing that says “cool” more than a bass player. upright bass or electric. they have a certain air, a je ne sais quoi, that just quietly and intensely says ‘phat’.
jim is like that. he was the throw-anything-at-me-and-i’ll-astound-you bass player on a couple of my albums. such a great sound. he’s a top-shelf musician and i’m proud to have had his playing as part of my recordings.
the bass player, 24″ x 48″
this painting makes me think of jim and also of several of The Girl’s and The Boy’s friends from high school. they were bass players in jazz band (and every other band that our district offers) and they rocked the house. many of them, like jim, are in chicago now and i hope they are playing and still rocking the house.
this cityscape morsel comes from david’s painting the bass player. when i was photographing the full painting, i kept zero-ing in on this morsel….the city at night. i love the fun of it, the color, the chaos. designing products with this morsel was a blast! i got lost in the possibilities. just as you can get lost in the night in this city.
reverse threading 