The Bare Bones of Grace

"The Bare Bones of Grace" - mixed media on 300 lb watercolor paper, 15" x 22".  Ready to frame.  Available here and at Artfinder.

​Another of the pieces from the Stan Kurth workshop.  This piece was whispering and nudging me all this week, but I just wasn't certain what it was saying until Mark Nepo interpreted for me (Nepo is good at that, it seems.  I wonder if Nepo knows he is also an art interpreter?)

"There's a rhythm to grace as we move through the years.  In the first half of life, we're called to take things in.  In the second half of life, we're called to empty out." - MARK NEPO

I'm in the emptying out half of life - letting go, letting the tide soften me.  There is a temptation to try to hold the tide back.  Build dams; watch them fail.  Catch the tide in pots and buckets; watch them overflow.  Letting go is better.

The figures in this piece are strong.  Regal, even.  It is a group of three, yet it is also two and one.  Two and one is different than three, yet both have strength and story.

The Bare Bones of Grace

​When humbled into the open, often against our will, our bones can rattle like wind chimes, making beautiful and haunting music, though it aches to do so. - MARK NEPO

The emptying half of life makes my bones rattle.  But it also leaves me softened, lighter, clattering in the breeze and tumbling in the tide, content to land where the wind and waves take me.  It delights me to see the paint manifest these stories in ways words cannot.