Stark Green Leaves
For a while, I’ve pondered whether or not I should pen something down about my quite extended hiatus from activity on this page over the past year or so. Alas, I’ve decided to do so, mainly for the reason that writing things down transforms them into something tangible and life-breathed, palpable enough to hold me accountable to my dreams.
As I recount the myriad of contributing factors to my unexpectedly long absence and to my creating less art than I’d hoped to in the past year, I’m lulled back into vivid memories of regular and slightly less regular shapes of life’s peaks and valleys ~ • Rigid artist’s block • Cyclical flavours of anxiety • An interlocking desire to be acutely purposeful and intentional about creating, so much so that I just stopped creating - how do you handle being crippled by the same thing that fuels you? • A fight I think many artists grapple with - conveying one’s experiences and interests authentically, yet also in a generously archetypal manner; couple this with the fear that comes with being vulnerable • Exhaustion from racing against an algorithm uncaring of your devotion to rendering beauty that lasts • Lastly, the typical struggle to maintain balance, teetering on the thin grid lines that weakly demarcate sections of our lives. The list goes on…
However, as life moved around me at an awkward pace, unpredictably shifting shape, I’m thankful that as I bent this way and that, navigating its sharp edges, I was most favourably chiselled and carved into an even more certain version of myself, smoothed out in conviction and polished with purpose.
All things considered, as I settle on what I want to reflect through my art going forward - what will keep me giddy to continue creating, I hope to remember these: That I find pleasure in observing things big and small and being rewarded with discoveries of metaphors that nimbly manage to boil life down; I’m deeply practical, yet beaming with child-like wonder and; I’m helplessly enamoured by how stringing together words on a page or composing a symphony of colours, lines and shapes, hold the power to nudge myself and others to for a few moments
pause and regard
the fullness of life and the One who fills it. For instance, what if I wrote a poem about a storm, and instead of focusing on the way dreary clouds darken our day, rather drew attention to
The way the rain’s moisture seeps and settles into the barks of trees,
Soaking them till they are an almost black hue,
Thus sharpening their contrast with the green leaves that adorn them,
Rendering them to appear more vibrant than before
And maintaining the colour in our day,
We initially thought stolen away?
What if with a painting that stills time, an honest poem, or a halting piece of fiction, I can help nudge us to slow and savour, to marvel at our Maker, and tilt our gaze to the uncountable sweet ways in which His love remains?
It would be my greatest honour.
P.P.S. although I’ve been very quiet on here recently, my life the past year has been FULL. Some highlights below and art to come at more naturally paced intervals :)