Yesterday I asked V. to come to the studio to critque my latest painting. It is an abstract landscape. I wasn't sure if it was finished until I explained to him what it was about. Explaining it, I burst into tears...and that's when I knew it was complete, that I had expressed what needed expressing.
This series of paintings that I'm working on--they are about color, but also about emotion. They are about the communication of emotion through color. During the process of conceptualizing this project I began to notice how deeply the landscape is connected to my sense of being. I am perpetually amazed by the way nature combines color, the way those colors are effected by light, and in turn the way it effects me. The night that Abe died I remember, vividly, the colors of that night. The dark sky, the grass, the dew. I remember just as vividly the colors a day, a week, a month later. My world, these past months, has been filled with both death and loss. But, at odd moments, it also becomes filled with hope.
When I began I thought that, for the first time, my work might become truly dark. I was willing to let it if it needed to be. But the light keeps sneaking in. Deep yellows, rich blues, vibrant greens. I also thought I would paint pure abstractions... but my inspiration for using colors keeps coming from the same source over and over-- the landscape, the sky. And every time I notice it, everyday, it takes my breath away. I clear another corner of my brain to make room to remember it, attempting to hold onto it just long enough for it to reach the canvas-- those colors, holding emotion--emotion that I cannot seem to write about, but that I still search for ways to express.
This open space...
...It is like breathe...
...found in combinations of color...
...everywhere.
And although I am still searching for words--
the bare canvas awaits...
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