Comfortable With Being Human

"Comfortable With Being Human" - acrylic on deep cradled wood panel, 12" x 16" x 1.5".  Ready to hang (sides are painted; no need to frame.  Hanging wire is attached).  Available here and at Artfinder.
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Comfortable With Being Human

​Vulnerability is....something Brené Brown asks everyone she interviews.  It's a good question, and one I've been contemplating recently.

If someone asked you what vulnerability
means, what would your answer be?

Perhaps you’d rattle off the dictionary
definition, and remind them that vulnerability
is the quality or state of being exposed to the
possibility of being attacked or harmed, either 
physically or emotionally.

Perhaps.

​Or maybe you’d tell them something else.

Maybe you’d say, “vulnerability is being able
to say, “no, I am not ok” right now, but that
doesn’t mean that I won’t be ok tomorrow.”

Maybe you’d say, “vulnerability is letting the
tears fall freely when my heart feels as if it’s
about to burst, and there seems to be a waterfall
coming out of my eye sockets.”

Maybe you’d say, “vulnerability is being able
to say, I don’t know. I don’t know where to go,
I don’t know what, and I don’t know the
answer to this question or the solution to this
problem — and I need help.”

Maybe

If someone asked you what vulnerability
means, what would your answer be?

Perhaps you’d tell them, “vulnerability is being 
comfortable with being human.”

- MEGAN MINUTILLO

I like to think I embrace vulnerability.  It sure feels that way as I approach the rocky end of a narrow cliff ledge on a mountain.  And it sure feels that way when I post my art, my words, my thoughts and feelings on social media and in this blog.  It sure feels that way when I open my wounded (but resilient) heart to another human.  And for darn sure when my aging, scarred body is revealed to another.  But am I really being vulnerable?

There are "waterfalls coming out of my eye sockets" that I often hold back or feel sheepish about.  There are parts of my life where "I don't know.  I don't know where to go" and yet I don't ask for help.  And I do struggle with saying "I am not ok right now."  Mostly, I realize upon this path of inquiry, where my hiking boots are not helping and my resilience doesn't make it any easier, that perhaps I have not yet reached the summit of vulnerability.  Sigh.  I will keep climbing.

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This week the GoPro is on loan to an improvisor and visual poet, so I'll give you a little pictorial journey of this piece in lieu of video.

Beginning with a notanized selfie as a loose inspiration image and an underpainting of fluorescent paint mixed with titanium white.  Drawing with my non-dominant hand in charcoal and then layering in colors while trying not to try...in other words, to keep it loose, to let the paint play, to resist realism and allow peculiarity to dominate the piece.  Tools include fingers, paper towel, rubber wedge, brushes and a spray bottle of water.