The Great Paradox of Being

The Great Paradox of Being

"The Great Paradox of Being" - acrylic on wood panel,  11" x 18" x .5".  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

​It is a great paradox of being that each of us is born complete and yet we need contact with life in order to be whole.  Somehow we need each other to know that completeness, though we are never finished in that journey. - MARK NEPO, The Exquisite Risk

​There is a melange of work going on in the studio.  Abstract, figurative, whimsical...and then this - whimsicalized abstracted trees?  Well, this is what happens when you leave an artist to her own devices for weeks on end.  With cats.  And a chihuahua.  And a studio partner who may be painting, may be recording music or may be building custom creations from wood.  And sunshine.  And open windows and breezes. And a world shouting STAY AT HOME!

​Things will always break apart and come together. Yet, in our pain, we often lose sight of their transformative connection: that each cocoon must break so the next butterfly can be.  And it is our curse and blessing to die and be born so many times.  So many sheddings.  So many wings.  But in this is the chief work of love: to comfort each other each time we break, to midwife each other each time we're born, and to be the missing piece in what we need to learn, again and again.  - MARK NEPO

Things as we knew them are surely breaking apart...and also coming together.  Perhaps in new ways, surely in unfamiliar ones. There are so many deepened connections - people reaching, comforting, midwifing each other's dreams, supporting and encouraging one another.  Is it just me who finds this sense of unmasked connection (irony intended) and social vulnerability refreshing and encouraging?  We unmask even as we are masking.    The missing pieces are, perhaps, coming together?

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​About the painting: as is my current tendency, a grayscale composition in gesso to begin.  Layers of acrylic paint and acrylic paint mixed with gesso.  Liberal use of a water bottle and sprayer, along with rubber wedge, paper towels and chopsticks.  I won't swear to it but there might be a few cat paw prints hidden in there, too.