I Can Do This, I Say

I Can Do This, I Say

​"I Can Do This, I Say" - oil on cradled wood panel, 18 x 18 x 1.75 .  Ready to hang. (click on the image to purchase)

So often I dream you’re here and I wake in the middle of a prayer from my muzzled
childhood. Jesus Mary and Joseph, I say, appalled that I’m stuck in 1955 when I need
something profane to see me through. Serrano’s submerged cross. Ginger tea.
The idea that we’re moving between horizons and the Earth is so wise she sends us
Winter and red-tailed hawks when we least expect them. I can do this, I say,
and the planet shifts imperceptibly. From a great distance she appears to be at peace.
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-FROM FIDDLEHEADS BY MAUREEN SEATON

A month of Fiddleheads​ lands us here, with the planet shifting imperceptibly as she/we sees the small beauties in an otherwise difficult life, and knows she can do this.

The things we can do when we think we can do no more astound me.  The pain we can endure, the exquisite joy we can feel wash over and through us even though there is pain.  The beauty we can see in a world bursting with conflict and crisis and chaos.

Winter and red-tailed hawks when we least expect them - yes.   And spring and river otters chirping, wild turkeys calling, crows raucously defending their turf.  I can do this, I say.

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About the art:  beginning with an old acrylic painting and a tub of black gesso, murdering the old painting to make room for the new.  Carving back through the wet gesso to reveal a spot or two of the underpainting color.  For this piece, I used no inspiration image.  Just a color palette and my Planes of the Head mannequin  - https://planesofthehead.com/products.php.  I sketched a basic shape and features with a small brush and some thinned oil paint.  Then the requisite 80 million layers of thin washes - darkening the background, highlighting the face, the flower petals, the hair.  Allowing the texture of the original painting to create a kind of old-world crackling of the skin.  OH!  A walnut-oil laden brush over wet petals to create the dripping effect.  A final layer of Gamvar gloss over the dried painting to make the darks sing.

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Congratulations to Sara V.H.!  Wonder Mike selected your name at random as winner of the April Reader Giveaway.  Be on the lookout for your prize package in the mail.  And thanks to all who participated!  Hooray!