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The Bare Bones of Grace

8/26/2019

7 Comments

 
"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.
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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.  
7 Comments
Carl Stoveland
8/26/2019 10:50:04 am

Jen, you are an incredible artist and a wise woman. So many great adventures and surprises ahead for you.

Reply
jen
8/26/2019 10:59:44 am

oh gosh thanks, Carl! This piece and Mark Nepo are joined at the hip, which always makes things wiser and better. Looking forward to adventure and surprises!!!! (But only the GOOD kind of surprises. )

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Carl Stoveland
8/26/2019 11:47:48 am

Yes. Good adventure and surprises from now on by decree!

Patti Bryan
8/26/2019 10:58:01 am

Amen. All of it. And I'm looking up Nepo right now!

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jen
8/26/2019 11:00:45 am

Patti, OMG! Mark Nepo...so wise. And always resonates. These passages are from his book "The One Life We're Given." I've been reading a chapter a week for over a year.

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Carol Edan link
8/28/2019 01:00:14 am

Letting go! I guess that is life's lesson, probably the hardest! Such an emotional and sensitive portrait! I see a mother and child in this image!
Nepo uses "grace" a lot in his book, and sometimes my head doesn't really get the meaning. Maybe it means thankfulness or gratitude in some instances.

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jen
8/28/2019 10:02:00 am

Carol! I see mother and child as well! Kindred spirits...

As for grace, Nepo calls it, at one point, "the unnameable presence that lives under all we do or aspire to." I imagine it means different things to each of us.

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  • Home
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    • The Downside of Lycanthropy
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