Description
This is a first. I’ve never before done a painting about anything remotely religious (unless you count my art obsession as religion *grin*) Truly, there’s a first time for everything.
You know that feeling when you’ve got way too much on, too many problems you’re simultaneously trying to solve, too many demands for your attention, energy, time, resources. Eventually it feels like your back is literally against a wall, and at that point there’s a short list of people you usually call. For me, my mum’s at the top of the list. The thing is, when I call my mum she seldom lets me wallow. This time was no different. The lecture varies slightly but the general gist is this:
“Stop focussing on the obstacles. Obstacles are what you see when you move your eyes from the goal”
“Yes, mum.”
And then she usually has a truck load of stuff around that theme to pump me up. Last year, there was one line of the bible that she would repeat like a mantra. You know she said it a lot when I even knew it by heart. Not only that, but I did a whole painting around it.
I did the painting over 2 days. The first night I went into the studio and could barely wait for the paint to dry as I heaped more and more paint on the canvas with a palette knife. If you look closely you can see that some bits of the lower layers are in danger of turning into mud. My form 6 art teacher would have my head!
The thing is my head was the problem. It was overloaded, too cluttered, too pressurised. It was mud. I needed to open the pressure release valve (a tube of paint) in order to even begin to think clearly.
I posted a pic of what I’d done so far on my Facebook page and my mother made absolutely no comment.
The next night, I was a little calmer. I’d been repeating mum’s mantra like an incantation and it was working to keep me on an even keel despite nothing really changing on the outside. When I got to my little studio I looked at the dry canvas and thought… last night was the wilderness, now it’s time to paint the way. And I did.
When I spoke to mum the next day, after I’d posted a pic of the finished piece, she said “I didn’t want to say anything before, especially on Facebook. It looked like you were going mad.”
Gee thanks mum *grin*
