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.
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| "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?
