Incendiary

Rolling up the blinds this morning, I’m not surprised to be greeted by a fresh blanket of snow covering the driveway. It seems as soon as the snowblower strips this metaphorical bed, Mother Nature is standing right behind, folding hospital corners and smoothing over its crisp whiteness. 

When there is literally no where to go, it’s easy to justify yet another snow day, this one to be used for making art.  I’ve ventured into watercolors on a larger scale. Fueled by a Call for Artists for an upcoming local show, I’m moving from the 4”X6” thumbnail paintings I’ve been learning on to 9”X12”, in all honesty, to justify the $30 entry fee (non-refundable whether my work is selected or not). Scaling up is more challenging than I thought, and I’m on my third version. Taking a page from Georgia O’Keeffe’s watercolor book, it’s liberating to be able to call these iterations studies, with the same name alongside a unique number.  I feel like a real artist.

"Incendiary IV", 2021 Watercolor

My painting depicts a wildfire; the initial studies created in response to an assignment from my virtual watercolor class last fall.  We were asked to interpret a poem filled with descriptors about color. I chose instead to bring to life excerpts from an interview with California firefighters:  “The flames are enormous now, bright yellow blooms amid pink-and-purple smoke.”  “The skeletons of trees, whole forests, are clearly visible.”

I’m drawn to this theme for so many reasons.  From a purely artistic viewpoint, it’s the opportunity to use bold, bright colors and allow the pooling water to swirl them into new shades.  It’s a direct message about the consequences to our environment, increasingly stiff penalties levied on the complicity short-sightedness for personal gain is driving.And it’s also representative of our turbid times, the pervasiveness of heated debate, and the inability to tamp down the flames.  

This winter's excruciating pain stems, in part, from a lack of connection.  Trapped inside, it’s hard not to resort to our television sets and the 24X7 “news” that seems filled with nothing but sensationalized divisive drama. It’s analogous to lighting a match under ourselves and wondering why everything is burning. I personally struggle striking the right balance between being aware of current events and smothered by the negativity.  I’ve had to learn how to take my own temperature and pull myself from the stifling heat of the oven of myopic rhetoric.

What really saddens me is how the divisiveness is infiltrating our personal lives.  We’re no longer watching a faraway fire destroy someone else’s house.  Our own homes are burning as our relationships become less than:  Either because we are aware friends and loved ones hold an opposing position and shy away from them in order to keep the peace, or we choose to sever relationships completely, heavy smoke rendering it impossible for us to see everything we know and love about that individual.

The idea that we are our own worst enemies, having created our own messes, was recently put in front of me.  It took me back immediately to healing from my divorce, and what a turning point it was for me to realize that wedding vows bind us together to manage whatever life deals us from outside the union; we are not meant to endlessly endure pain deliberately inflicted from within the union. The world hadn’t handed us unmanageable problems, in fact we had it pretty good.  All our wounds were self-inflicted and we were too naive, too proud, too hurt to summon the vulnerability it would have taken to move past them.  We started our own fires innocently enough, stoked them unintentionally and were surprised to watch them rage bigger than we were.   

  

Water is the antidote to fire. Cold the opposite of heat.  Winter a time of hibernation, inward focus.  Can we use this forced isolation to look at ourselves and ask what part we play?  Where are we lighting matches, wielding bellows or pouring gasoline?  How much water would it take to put out our personal fires?  Just like a watercolor painting, this work takes patience, especially at a larger scale. And just like this winter’s snowfall, it can seem like we’re making progress toward brighter days, only to be dumped on again. 

Getting to the finished work of art requires a steady build of layers that need to dry to some degree in between.  It’s the delicate dance of controlled chaos. Thinking we can predict the exact outcome and rushing to the finish we see in our mind’s eye destroys the painting. Human beings striving to understand each other need the discipline and desire to sit in thoughtful dialogue, ask probing questions, alternately layering on viewpoints, absorbing what the other has said.  What gets me about watercolor every time is that the painting doesn't look like much throughout most of the process.  It’s not until the final moments that it really comes to life, and always, always in the most surprising ways. 

What if we discarded everything we think we know about each other, and instead were willing to embark on a journey of discovery together?  Can our relationships be the blanket of fresh snow cover that finally douses the fire, the phoenix that rises anew from these smoldering ashes?  

Ikigai

"What gets you up in the morning?" It's the question I'm tasking myself, and my treasured friends in Book Club, to answer at the dawn of this new year.  Our Book Club, we discovered after doing a little research through our electronic libraries, has been in existence for nearly ten years!  Time flies when you're discussing good books with great people.  Over the years we've reserved our January meeting for an art project.  With the craziness of the holidays, it's hard to find time to read in December, so we use our time at the beginning of the year to contemplate all that we want to be different in our lives in the new year and express those wishes through art.  Intentions, a single descriptive word, and resolutions are documented and interpreted in vision boards, journals or flags.  I can't wait to see how my pals express what propels them to rub the sleep from their eyes, pull back the covers and rise to greet the day.

After seven years in the same role at my office, I am making a fresh start in a brand new position.  Ironically, it was the pandemic and associated lockdown that begged me relentlessly to disrupt myself.  While eternally grateful to remain employed in such dire economic times which have robbed so many of so much, when stripped of all those activities that make up what really matters in life, I became acutely aware that the passion and joy I derived from work had somehow slipped away, too.  The environment had changed around me, and I realize now I spent way too much time hoping each change would yield new energy.  It was the gift of a leadership coach who helped me believe I was empowered to make the change I wanted to see.  I just needed to be brave enough to ask for it.

 

And so in the anomalous year that 2020 showed herself be, I stirred an already turbulent pot.  I searched for a new job and got married.  I established a home yoga practice outside of my beloved hot room, religiously took a daily walk, and began on-line art classes where I continued to hone drawing skills, learned how to paint with watercolors and became part of a Facebook drawing community whose members faithfully and generously supported each other as we courageously shared all our wonky attempts to learn something new.  I became a better cook, and baked quantities of Christmas cookies that could not possibly be consumed by the select few in our bubble.

And as I'm writing this I recall recently thinking that the best part of my day is waking up to see how my watercolor paintings have dried, signing my name and slicing a butter knife around the paper block to release them into the world.  

I would have to travel great distances in the way back machine to recall this much newness in such a short period of time in the chronicles of this old life of mine.  But that's the thing, right?  Who among us wasn't having a hard time at some point in the last year mustering up the energy to face each new day with the joy and appreciation it deserves?  We are forced to disrupt ourselves in order to thrive. As I look back on a truly extraordinary year, I see now that every new thing I have created in the last 300 days was done so out of necessity.  How else was I going to get up in the morning?