This is a glimpse into the beginning of one of my favorite paintings. I know. It’s not real exciting in this phase. Hang with me, though… there’s a story!
According to the elves who stash the photos, it was taken November 29, 2020.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed into her future. The 3rd US President ever tried for impeachment was acquitted. Biden had just won the Presidential election, though opposition efforts to challenge the result were rampant.
It felt like a really good time for a Legend painting. The kind about the future we – the artists – hope to grow into.
We began, she and I, with a lot of coding. Mostly the dots surrounded by parentheses which represent, in my own personal symbolic language, the old story which ends with an astounding, scripturally inspired claim that, The chains which bound me are broken and I am free, already.
And another familiar one for me… a determined hand raised in blessing! And an insistent sunflower growing bigger and brighter around her eye.
(I get the right/left thing confused but, for me, it’s her visionary eye. And I felt like we were both squinting and straining to see hope!)
You know what was coming… January 6. A violent insurrection, attempting to overturn the election, in the US Capitol. MSNBC and paint! Dots beyond number. Peace. Justice. Sanity. Hope…. Until we arrived here.
And later, in February of 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. The land where sunflowers are symbols of hope. There was room on the edges of the canvas for more dots and so I painted more. The fingerprint kind… no longer trying to steer, but to follow, instead.
And, just in case you’re feeling the chaos, too, there’s this… which is what happened on that canvas before the image began to appear.
Tonight, I’m painting more. A different canvas. Wisteria vines. The Muse insisted!
Different views of sunflowers. Many, many, many dots. And more to come.
As long as it takes. As long as I have breath.
I have 2 grand-teens trying very hard to grow up in this world. They are teaching me every moment.
Out of chaos… hope!
ps… got chaos? Want hope? On a mission to BE hope? More comfortable in an individual setting than a group space??? There is room in my world for 3 new 1:1 clients! All the Medicine Basket Coaching could be your next right step! Check this out and let me know if you’d like to talk! suesvoice@gmail.com
pps… the wise owl above the sunflower is formed from pages of my book… Grandmothers Are In Charge Of Hope! Just click the link to get your copy, now!
ppps… huge thanks to Taylor for brilliant help painting!!!