The Back Story

I created this painting over a year ago. It has been displayed often and commented on often over the course of many monthly artwalks at my studio. However, this past month it was the highlight of the show. People told me how they would never tire of looking at this painting, of how it spoke of peacefulness and hope rising, of how it reminded them of a rainstorm off the coast in Hawaii, and so many other associations. The painting is suggestive of landscape and open-ended enough so that everyone can bring their own personal reference and reflection and story to its viewing. And it has a story to me also. The story of my struggle with this painting. How it is a completely different painting underneath. Of how I coaxed and coaxed the beauty out of the ugliness. How I finally flipped the thing over, mixed up a fabulous green and painted over nearly the entire surface. How I wanted the mist to rise off the horizon and only in wiping away with a handful of paper towels and mineral spirits did the shape that I certainly could never have imagined or painted in manifest as a result of my frustration. How willfulness is sometimes an enemy and that depth and beauty and a space to breathe come after the struggle and simplification. And how personally, the acceptance of who I am finally found its way onto the canvas. Yep, that is all in this painting. Ashore and its back story left the studio with a new owner the day after artwalk.

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