The Lines Are Down. Acrylic. 22.5 x 30.5
The internet connection in Alaska was cumbersome and I didn’t keep up with the blog so here’s a piece from sabbatical year. This painting was the result of a flippant question and I was stunned the answer so immediately and effectively presented. Art and life move along side by side. This past year has been a huge question for most of us and why questions get us absolutely nowhere. Why questions feed guilt, regret, sorrow and second-guessing ourselves. Why did they do that? Why did that happen? and on to undermine our confidence. Why questions waste energy and precious time we could be processing and moving forward. More effective questions begin with what. What’s the next step? What would happen if I…? As I posed in the question preceding this painting ~ what would it look like?
Artmaking, however inadequate we feel to the task, is willing to work for us and have our back as we resolve our questions. Here’s the story from the original post in Instagram
I’m pragmatic about art making. Begin at point A and proceed to the zed of signature with a death grip on realism. A few days ago, I positioned a primed watercolor sheet for a go at the series I’m working on. A bit flippant (and out of nowhere) I mused, “If a ‘good girl’ painted rage, what would it look like?” I came back to awareness stunned to realize this is an allegory for the 1964 Alaska earthquake and Tsunami. 9.2 Richter. I clearly remember the quake. The aftermath was a blank. A few years ago, I recalled huddling under blankets in the dark with no heat, on the sofa hugging a flashlight. The world had ended, the aftershocks kept coming and even now my chest constricts and hands shake as I write.
My father was the manager of the phone company with the only mobile phone in the area. Mother worked in the office. They left me alone for days to care for my younger sister while they went about restoring telephone communication with the outside world and doing whatever good they could along the way. When I asked her why they left us behind, she said, “When something like that happens, you do what you have to.” I went on to experience enough disasters across the country in the next 20 years the Red Cross wanted to hire me. The earthquake was my first presentiment of Mother Earth’s growing dissatisfaction with what the human race is doing to itself and the planet. If that’s not rage, I don’t know what is.