- Published on
The Past Claws Its Way Out
"The Past Claws Its Way Out" - oil on canvas, 15 x 30 x .75. Ready to hang. Available here, at Artfinder and at Bluethumb.
“I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
“I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
This painting has been sitting here for months, waiting for its story to be revealed. And it came to me on the first cold, rainy day in a good long while, sipping coffee in the studio and listening to the soft sound of water. Thanks to Hosseini, I have the scaffolding to deconstruct it.
I became what I am today at the age of ten, on a rainy day in Alabama in 1972. I remember the moment as if I were standing there now, my dad asking me out on the patio of our townhouse to have a talk, through the sliding door and onto the cement pad which had no furniture or adornment. It was the day I was tasked with finding and confiscating my mother's many hidden bottles, and, in a sense, I am still looking today.
I became what I am today at the age of ten, on a rainy day in Alabama in 1972. I remember the moment as if I were standing there now, my dad asking me out on the patio of our townhouse to have a talk, through the sliding door and onto the cement pad which had no furniture or adornment. It was the day I was tasked with finding and confiscating my mother's many hidden bottles, and, in a sense, I am still looking today.
There is a lot of information about how art helps the viewer, allowing access to emotions through a visual catalyst which may help reveal questions or truths which are otherwise hard to reach. But really, art heals the artist.
It heals by reaching in and pulling out the guts of things - letting the creator examine them from safe perches. It heals by being slow to reveal - teasing, tickling, suggesting, nudging before dropping the veil. And it heals by allowing the artist to speak about the art as if it isn't their own innards in the paint. A little distance from the subject allowing the act of vulnerability to feel less unclothed.
Thank you, dear reader, for listening. Have you had a revealing art experience? I'd love to hear your story.
It heals by reaching in and pulling out the guts of things - letting the creator examine them from safe perches. It heals by being slow to reveal - teasing, tickling, suggesting, nudging before dropping the veil. And it heals by allowing the artist to speak about the art as if it isn't their own innards in the paint. A little distance from the subject allowing the act of vulnerability to feel less unclothed.
Thank you, dear reader, for listening. Have you had a revealing art experience? I'd love to hear your story.
About the art: This piece was inspired by a very surreal and abstracted session with the AI bot, where I asked for wolves and women and Edgar Degas and Edvard Munch and Gustav Klimt. The resulting flurry of images was startling and impactful. I chose some elements of the images and decided on a vertical orientation with a couple of hot color edges to "frame" the action - there is distance between the malevolent character and the seemingly unaware human, yet they are forced into a confined space by the color. Thinned oil paint layers were used almost exclusively, with exception of the hair and hot edges. As always, resisting the urge to overly define, letting the paint whisper and nudge.
6 Comments
Lola, everything about today's post—your art, the quotation, your thoughts, your words about the art—grabbed my hand and gave me the chance to run with you, for which I am tremendously grateful and through which I am enlivened. Whew! Lovin' the rushing air blowin' through inner cobwebs, lovin' the thump thump thump of my livin' heart.
Dotty!!! I am so delighted we could run together with the air blowing cobwebs away! xoxoxo
So many hidden stories just waiting to be released! Some sad and some not so sad! Love the ambiguity of some of your elements. Her flowing arms and frozen wooden feet; the fox /horse. I definitely believe that each piece we make tells it's hidden tale!
Carol!! The hidden stories! OMG! And thank you for loving the ambiguity...I am trying hard to embrace that in the art. xo
We become who we are every step of the way. So maybe when those moments, those experiences claw their way up to the surface like fever-dream creatures, we could hold space for them, embrace them? My art is an expression of me, but it's never an expression of the battlefield for me, I think. My writing is another story. The words begin to drift in, and then.....there's the armada.
Carol!!! I love knowing that writing summons your armada, but not creating visual art. It has me very curious about how some activities are brain/emotion catalysts while others are more soothing perhaps?
