I could tell she was so excited to be surrounded by all the birds. Standing in my studio she said, (in French) “You know what my last name means…” To be honest, I didn’t even know what her last name was. “C’est Mésange.” (As if that helped.) She pointed to one of the birds on canvas, and looked up on her phone. “Chickadee?” I said. She looked at her phone, Yes, yes, yes. She beamed. Her name meant Chickadee.
I never have any idea what will connect us. But I do know this. People will find themselves, and in turn, you will find them.
It was always the blouse for my mother. Yesterday, the purse in the painting for my friend Sheila. And with each reveal, I learn a little bit more about those around me, just by seeing what they see.
I suppose we’ve been saying it forever. A mile in someone else’s shoes. But I wonder if we’re still doing it…making the journey from Mésange to Chickadee.
A painting will dictate what it wants for a frame. Or some will not need one at all. But once in a while, the sequence reverses, and I will paint an image for a frame. That’s what happened with this little one. It was alone in the thrift store. Empty. But not for long.
To see a need and fill it, before the asking, it’s nice within my artistic world, but my sincere hope is that I can do it in real life. With real people.
I was told once that when someone near you is going through a difficult time, you should never ask them “What can I do?” Of course it is well intended, but now you’ve only added to the situation – given them another problem to solve – how you can help. It’s never easy, or a sure thing, but I suppose the best thing is to just do something. It may not be the thing to solve the problem, but doing something nice can never be wrong. And you can always do another thing.
In that spirit, I’ve painted several small pieces for this frame. They can always be switched out. Mostly it serves as a reminder for me to just keep doing. Keep trying. And I’m not going to lie, it simply feels good. It fills me at the same time as the frame. So I smile and point the question, not outwardly, but inwardly, “What can I do?” And I do something. And that should be celebrated.
It’s Grandma Elsie’s voice I hear. When I sold my first original painting, I told her about the gallery, the people, the price. She clapped her hands in front of her heart and said, “Isn’t that something?!!!!!!”
This little French bird has raced to the top of my Pinterest stats. He wasn’t blessed with the time and attention of a large canvas. He began as just a small sketch in my book. Probably on an afternoon when that’s all I had to invest.
But here he is — atop the leader board of interest. I love this for two reasons. It tells me even the smallest of gestures can make a difference. During those times when we think we don’t have a lot to give, we can still have purpose and reason and meaning in the smallest of attempts. And most of all, I love that his chubby little imperfections are celebrated with joy. And if we can do this for him, we can do it for each other!
Whatever the day may bring, I urge you to squeeze into the horizontal stripe of it all, with confidence, with joy and with love. I’ll see you there – somewhere near the top!
As a child, sometimes more than once a day, I would have to gather and push all of my swirling thoughts out the front door of our house on Van Dyke Road. It was there on that cement stoop that they could breathe. All of my hopes and plans. My dreams and curiosities. They felt free, like summer toes in green, dew-damp grass. They tumbled without spotters. They grew without restriction. Voices were given to dolls and animals. I planted my future in Hugo’s field. Dared my existence in the North End. Outraced my worry over popping gravel behind my banana seat bike. And in all that release, I felt complete. Full.
I still try to allow the space for the swirling. Letting it loose on canvas and paper. Roaming up the hills of the Montaiguet. Splashing in the pool. I don’t think any of it was meant to be contained. Not imagination. Certainly not love. So I give it space. Room to tumble. And on the stoop of all that feeling, all of that letting go, I am saved.
Once she realized that “soon” was no more real than “a long time ago,” — that she could just be in it, this shouldered and weightless grace — there was no more worry of where it had flown, or if it would fly away, it just was…and she was… What a relief to be feathered this way. Not to be ready, but simply be, and know that it was ok.
She smiled at the slyness of this effortless grace, not asking for it to remain, (because certainly grace needed no request) but hoping that she could, that she would… Be.
I have an understanding with the Magpies. A crust of baguette from the kitchen window. Not the shiny object they are accused of coveting, but well lit for certain, under the summer sun of Provence. The exchange is met with chatter, and somehow we both know what feeds our soul.
This constant craving that keeps me returning to the studio — to paint again, for the first time — is me, magpie-ing that feeling. To find the face in the new portrait is to find a bit of myself. To dare going past that first stroke. To dare as well the letting go. All in search of the crust that feeds me.
The light in Provence is like no other. Perhaps I was unprepared at first, for this great reveal. (Are we ever prepared to really see things?) On the ledge outside the studio, I can view the colors I don’t even remember painting. Like a lost memory in the heart that says, “Oh, I’m ready to shine.” That is willing and able to admit that I’m not just black and white, but blue. To show it all is to risk it all. But I, like the Magpie, have come to brave the creak of the handle. The clank of the window opening. All for the taste of a slip of lavender honey on no ordinary crust of bread.
The light is calling. My heart chatters — I will not refuse.
I have had this canvas for about 15 years. It has transitioned and traveled with me through abstraction and country. The last painting was here in France, a seascape of sorts. But I can’t tell you exactly what came before that. I know it’s still there. Underneath. Behind, within this woman.
If you ask me who she is, prepare yourself for the underpainting. She is the curve of every woman.
She is my grandmother whose hands never stopped. Hands that I watched in amazement and wrote, “If she did worry, it never showed in her hands. She held. She gave. She touched.”
She is my mother. The posture of grace. In an apartment kitchen filled with more worry than nourishment, she lifted a hand, and gently directed me in the dance.
She is my friend, long past her days of professional dance, who still walks in the garage as if onto the stage.
She is another friend, deep in grief, (a depth that only comes with love) who dares the dance of my mother, and releases, again, and again, with the curve of a woman.
When I look at the sides of the canvas, I see these bright and dark colors. Not who she is now. Not who I am now. But I see the lines of the underpainting — the embossing and debossing of all that paint (the experience) that has come before. And it adds pattern to her dress. Movement to her hands. Strength to her feet. And opens the sky. Opens her heart. My heart. Your heart. Wide open.
At the moment my two most popular pins on Pinterest are of young women reading. It warms my heart that neither are distracted by the thousands of views and likes. Nor by the news that we are becoming a post-literate world. They can’t be certain of what lies ahead, but they continue. Fighting back, not with fist nor fury, but by simply reading.
There is so much noise currently. But there are things that still give me hope. An open window. An open spine. The quiet exchange of knowledge. Of truth. That you will take the time to read my simple words. And we connect, not over a ranting rage, but a common calm.
I quietly open the morning window. Taking comfort in knowing that hope always whispers.
At first glance, you may have thought her superpowers came from her clothes. But I was witness “after the phone booth.”
I stared at the gravel road, waiting for her to come home from work. First came the puffs of gravel from Van Dyke Road. Then I could see her car. The blinker. And every schoolyard worry exhaled from my elementary body, as she pulled into the driveway. Her skirt and blouse were wrinkle free, just as she had left at 7am that morning. Not a scuff on her shoes as she sat on the side of her bed and placed them back in the box. She took off her run-free pantyhose. Washed them in the sink. Hung her clothes back in the closet. Sweeping down one last time, not to dewrinkle, but more I thought, in thanks of a day well served.
Donned now in her house clothes, her posture never changed. Shoulders back. Head high. Her size 10’s seem to glide across the kitchen floor. “You could be a dancer on the Lawrence Welk show,” I praised. She leaned into her smile and started dinner.
In my newest painting, I’m trying to convey the elegance. You might wonder when you see the curve of her hand, or the strength of her neck, how she could be in a simple house dress. But I know where she came from. I have witnessed the puff of smoke she rose through and above. The canvas is big. I have to stand. To reach. And I know it is the praise she deserves. I raise my chin. I raise my brush. And continue.
Mrs. Bergstrom stood at the front of the first grade class, the “times” tables rubbing off onto her shoulder from the blackboard, and she told us that we had to “learn it by heart.” Always one to feel a little more than perhaps necessary, I assumed she meant everything from here on out. I still do.
I’m a firm believer that the heart can, and must, override the hands’ hesitation.
I can’t think of anything where my heart didn’t first convince my brain to urge my hands to continue. From painting a portrait to baking a cake, I am grateful for my hands every day, but even they are well aware of who’s leading.
Painting her yesterday, I could feel it. I know that fear of moving forward. Risking it all. Being vulnerable. But I also know that I won’t get stuck there. I will lean in. As I always do. I will brush away the shouldered what ifs, and take my elementary self, by heart, into the music of the day, and I will dance.
