March has been a wonderful month for creativity and new challenges!  I love when I try something new and it actually works!

The first painting I finished was of Lake Louise and an attempt, I think successful, at combining my landscape and abstract methods.  The use of watercolour inks, in addition to my paints, made for much more free flow and meant that I had to be able to let go even more than usual.

And so, art imitates life. Or life imitates art maybe. Still not sure of the order but it seems to happen a lot for me.  Maybe it’s the first, because the art becomes a method of journaling and processing for me what is happening privately.  And this month required a lot of letting go in my personal life.

Relationships can be difficult.  That might be my understatement of the year!  But sometimes they can be so difficult that there simply isn’t a way to reconcile anymore.  Being divorced, I’ve known this to be very true.  You can work at something for years and still not fix anything to a point of being able to continue to walk together.  And I have found out that it can be true in other relationships as well. And it doesn’t mean that there is anything left to change or fix.  It just means I have to walk away, and understand that I am free to be me as I am, just as the other person is as well.  And so, there is a letting go required.

And this makes its way onto the canvas.  Letting go with paints actually requires an immense amount of trust for me. It feels scary but hopeful at the same time. So, with the latest painting of Lake Louise I had knots and butterflies in my stomach. Nervousness and anticipation were both there.  Coming to the end of the painting though, there was pure joy and excitement at having created something new that I loved and could expand on in future paintings.

And my second painting of this month, an abstract that continued to expand on methods of an earlier abstract, was pure joy.  “Exaltation” became the sister to “Offerings” and was my continued art journaling of what I was reading in my spiritual practice.  The colour scheme, in blue, crimson and purple, are the colours of the ancient Tabernacle and G-d instructs it so often to be decorated with these colours that it was not hard to see these are His favourite colours!  And the movement of it, always reaching higher, is the movement of my own soul. Reaching, looking, hoping, always trusting Him for the right direction.

Painting is my way of not just letting go, but of moving forward and moving higher. To places I’ve never been before and to peacefulness I’ve not experienced to that degree until now.  And there is always more to reach for.  The gifts keep giving, become more profound and give greater calm to the soul as I continue to dig deeper and paint more freely.

My hope with both these paintings is that I share a little more of my journey and thus a little more of me with you.  This is my way of laying bare what is inside me. And I hope in some way that it connects with you and there is greater understanding between us.