Stop, look, and listen to life...

“Literature, painting, music – the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look, and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot.  In a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things.”

Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

“Creativity is a way of living life – no matter what our vocation, or how we earn our living… The creator is not afraid to leap over the ‘accidental fences’ and to plunge into the deep waters of creation.  There once again, and in yet another way we lose ourselves to find ourselves…”

Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

On May 3rd I began this painting of the Peony - and today, I've finally finished after many hours. As I've said before, "There comes a time to say, enough!"  

That doesn't mean I'm satisfied with the painting, or that it couldn't be improved upon, or indeed that it couldn't have been painted in an entirely different manner - it just means, simply, enough... time to let it go:)

A painting such as this is for me meditative. It takes hours of quiet, steady, pondering time.  I work in silence mostly.  I lose myself in a strange way.  There is a point when there is absolute dread and fear and the decision needs to be made -  to throw it away in despair or move on in faith.  I hope that by moving on with it I have learned more of myself, my art, and of my life.