The first few strokes of the brush can be the hardest part of painting for beginning artists. It takes courage to start placing lines and swaths of color on the pristine white of a canvas or paper. I’ve discovered covering the canvas with a layer of gray gesso eases the challenge of making a first mark. Gray also amps up color radiance, the way a rainbow glows when illuminated against a dark sky. Placing color on a gray surface is a little breath-taking.
Likewise, it was hard for me to find the courage when today I painted over two days of work because it just didn’t feel RIGHT. Maybe I should be slower to take this step; perhaps I’ll like what I have after supper and a good-night’s sleep. Or maybe it really is best to let it all go and head in a different direction. Scary.
The work I have done under all those layers is good work. It’s just not RIGHT; yet I haven’t decided what right is. I’ll know it when I see it, or rather, when I feel it. I’m not sure where I’m going with this painting - no vision, no goal. I have lost my direction. Or have I?
I have been reflecting on areas of my life that have been dynamic - perhaps some would say unstable - and have seen recurrent change:
My hair (although its color landed on silver long ago);
My weight (up and down);
My cars (don’t trust high miles);
My locations (eight towns/cities);
My houses (10 or so over 40 years of marriage and family)
The arrangement of furniture in those houses (frequent).
In self-defense, I want to add that I have stayed with the same guy, continued running and hiking, been true to the practice of art, and constant in my wonder of God for most of my life.
I have come to the conclusion that I am captivated by the mystery of possibilities:
what if…
what could be if…
what would happen if…
For many years I was hard on myself - a tendency women fall into early on. It can reach a new intensity during the uncertain years of raising children. Perfectionism limited my satisfaction and contentment, exposing a spirit that resisted stillness. It’s interesting how my heavenly Father lead me to rest by adding more to my job description. A pregnancy in my forties changed perfectionism to perceiving possibilities. I began to see beauty in the imperfect, both in my surroundings and in myself. This shift in seeing and thinking wound its way into my art, showing me that imperfect is much more inviting than perfect. People began to comment on how my paintings made them feel rather than on their admiration of my skills. Making art became relational rather than performance.
Nearly twenty five years have flowed by since my “child of trust” was born and I began experimenting with the what if… in my paintings. The courage it takes to brush over something in order to check out the possibilities in a painting has ebbed into other areas of my life, granting permission to shift circumstances as needed for the RIGHT outcome.
Like Abraham, willing to let go of what is good to find what is RIGHT (Genesis 12), I want to be a seeker in the mystery of what is possible. The thrill of possibilities has become an adventure of trust in my Heavenly Father. I trust in His reality, wisdom, power, and involvement - His willingness to be these things in me and for me. Is this self-centered or is it God-centered abandon?
Possibilities aren’t without risk or loss. There is a good chance people would have liked what has been covered, perhaps more than the new painting I have created. I might have liked it too. But I’m excited by what is en route and I’m willing to let go of what might have been.
In life’s circumstances willingness doesn’t always come quickly or easily; sometimes I have to grieve the loss of something good, even when it was my choice to change. I wonder if letting go of home was easy for Abraham? I think Sarah struggled at times. I’m glad her late-life pregnancy brought laughter into her life (Genesis 21:7-7). Perhaps she too learned about the beauty of imperfection through her child of trust?
The “new” painting, placed over five layers of effort, is nearly complete. It makes me smile because of all that it represents. Very little of the previous layers can be seen yet they have each impacted what you do see: the process brought the results.
I marvel at this mystery!
