Renunciation

Renunciation

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Renunciation
oil on canvas panel
20 x 24 inches
This item is unframed
(click on the image to purchase)

The road to human development is paved with renunciation. Throughout our life we grow by giving up. We give up some of our deepest attachments to others. We give up certain cherished parts of ourselves. We must confront, in the dreams we dream, as well as in our intimate relationships, all that we never will have and never will be. Passionate investment leaves us vulnerable to loss. And sometimes, no matter how clever we are, we must lose… It is only through our losses that we become fully developed human beings. - JUDITH VIORST

I've been contemplating loss.

Loss in the wider world (human rights, decency, compassion, freedom), how those losses impact my small world, and also the losses associated with living a life.

Some attachments are willingly forgone - it was nothing to embrace a vegetarian lifestyle many years ago, for example.  A joy, even, which continues today.   Some attachments are severed, rather than given up - when people leave or physical abilities vanish in the blink of an eye (or at the blunt end of an accident).  And some attachments erode slowly over time, until one day you wake up and realize they are gone, whatever (or whoever) they were.

​In my best moments of loss-wrangling, I have embraced the empty space, allowing it to be just that - empty - knowing it creates room for opportunity.

And in my worst moments of navigating loss I have held on with clenched fists, breathless and bracing myself, resisting the inevitable.  It never goes well.

When I look back on all of the embraced empty spaces and what they have become, I am dazzled, gobsmacked and bowled over by the joy, the fortune, the pure magic of what came to fill those spaces.  And if I focus on that, the next renunciation is easier, more graceful and more peaceful.

​I am unsure how this works with the wider world and those losses, but I am contemplating it, allowing space for something, anything to make those losses feel like openings.

A little animation sing-along for your Monday!

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About the art:  beginning with a gesso'd canvas panel, I roughed in the figure with a long brush laden with thinned dark oil paint.  Just a light wash to get the gist of it down.  Then a base layer for the background, refining the figure proportions from the outside in, and a long drying time.  As has become my habit, I then tackled the face, shoulders and hand to remove any trepidation, allowing them to dry thoroughly while working on the dress and hair.  This piece has the requisite 80 million layers to achieve the color saturation and shading.  More layers for the skintones, more layers for the background, more layers for the dress and then a final layer for that blush foreground.  Oooooh la la!  She is a powerful one!

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Congratulations to Bryan E!  Wonder Mike drew your name as winner of the July Reader Giveaway!  Send your mailing address to [email protected] and your prize will be in the mail lickety-split!

​The August Reader Giveaway begins today!  Leave a comment on any blog post this month to be automatically entered.  Wonder Mike will be drawing two names and giving away two small pieces this month!  Now that's something to get excited about! :)

August Reader Giveaway One

August Reader Giveaway Two