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.
I didn’t even notice it when I took the picture – how the bamboo tree photobombed my most recent painting.
I don’t know that I was aware of the speed, strength and resilience of bamboo before moving to France. We have a tiny forest of them in our backyard. It’s not like you can actually see them growing…but almost. For the most part, we have kept them contained to a single area, but this one somehow snuck much closer to the house.
I was never really one to paint landscapes before. I had only lived in the city. But I am surrounded by nature now. I walk through it daily. It seems I permanently have a rock in my shoe, every shoe, and a call to wander. It’s in my heart now. And as with all of my paintings, they have to travel through there first. I paint the landscapes. I live in this new palette. And I can see it. The growth.
Maybe I didn’t notice it while it was happening, but I have bambooed my way into this new palette — this new life. I suppose that’s the way it is with all growth — strong, resilient, and oh, so surprising!
