Locked Rooms

Locked Rooms

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"Locked Rooms" acrylic on wood panel,  16 x 20 x .25 inches.  This item is unframed. (click on the image to purchase)

​I want to ask you, dear sir, as best I can, to have patience about everything that is still unresolved in your heart; try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms, like books written in a truly foreign language. Don’t look for the answers now: they cannot be given to you yet because you cannot yet live them, and what matters is to live everything. For now, live the questions. If you do, then maybe, gradually, without your realizing it, some far-off day you will live your way into the answer. - RAINER MARIA RILKE 

I am often very patient with others.  Not always, of course, but often.

I am not easily patient with myself.

Learning to love the questions themselves has been a big part of my journey the past couple of years,  Staring at the doors of those locked rooms and resisting the urge to grab a toolbox and remove the doors.  Instead, allowing all the time needed for the doors to open, or (heaven forbid) to remain closed.  Mustering up a bit of faith that what needs to be revealed shall be.  And what isn't brought into the light isn't meant to yet.

​My impatience makes me feel awkward, clumsy, like this character perhaps.

It isn't the first time I've painted a young werewolf with a balloon.  It symbolizes something to me...in this case, I think the balloons might be joy, and the werewolf doesn't want to look at them in case they may disappear.  Joy can be elusive, especially since our brains are primed to look for trouble instead.  

Perhaps joy is yet a book written in a foreign language on some days.  But I plan to sit and wait, as patiently as one can, for the words to make sense.

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About the art:  Something new for me this week.  Of course I have painted on wood panel before, but not with the objective of making the wood itself part of the art.  Beginning with a high quality wood panel (this one from Jacksons), I covered it with a good coat of clear varnish.  Once dry, I sketched the character on the wood, taped off the center section and added a coat of black gesso for the background.  The rest was a very patient labor of love with the smaller Uni Posca Paint Pens used in the same way as Rotring Tikky pens for pen and ink drawings.  Just black and white, simplicity and a bit of innocence.  The wood tone comes through in parts of the garment and body, warming up what might otherwise be a bit too stark.  This one makes me smile. 

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Congratulations to Julie (aka Mighty Athena on Bluesky)!  Wonder Mike drew your name at random as winner of the April Reader Giveaway!  Send your mailing address to [email protected] and your prize will be in the mail!

​Thank you to everyone who commented in April.  Your participation means the world to me!  A new contest begins today - leave a comment on any blog post in the month of May to be automatically entered.