 |
Girl falling into fountain while texting, 6X8, oil on canvas
|
Years ago I had a large brush-pile in my backyard, left over
from clearing trees. I would have burned it where it sat, except it was too
close to the woods for safety. As the greenwood decayed, it slumped into a
solid, stinking mass. I pulled and yanked but got nowhere. After hours of
clipping, cutting, shifting and swearing, I was about to quit, when something shifted
and the whole thing just came apart.
 |
Beak! Boss! 6X8, oil on canvas
|
Anyone who’s ever sewn knows that the last seam you put in
when you’re overtired will be wrong. And I can’t count how many times I’ve done
a computer project only to realize when I was almost finished that there was a
faster, easier way to do it.
Art has a steep learning curve because we're often doing things we've never done before. A lot of our time seems to bear no fruit. But stagnation and
even falling backward are an important part of the process.
 |
| Baby Monkey Riding on a Pig #2 (Abi's Opossum), 6X8, oil on canvas |
Every morning I spend about ten seconds posting my blog
pictures on Pinterest. I get the occasional note that something has been repinned,
but in general it doesn’t feel like anyone is paying that much attention. Yet I recently got a note that I had more than 26K Pinterest
hits in 2014.
Esther is the
one of the two Bible books that has no star turn for God. It seems to be a
series of human interactions, the majority of which go pretty
badly for Esther and her people. But a
seemingly insignificant thing happens—Ahasuerus can’t sleep. The story his
courtier uses to put him to sleep turns out to be the pin which releases the
salvation of the Jewish people. The events are all worldly, but the net result is miraculous.
 |
Baby Monkey Riding on a Pig #1 (with
gumdrops),
|
All of which is to say that our human perception of progress
is exceedingly narrow. So keep plugging. You never know when you’ll pull the
linchpin.
 |
Pull Up Your Big Girl Panties,
|
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
