The World Comes Rushing In

"The World Comes Rushing In" -oil on cradled wood panel, 12" x 16" x 1.25".  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

It remains important to reach out and to express oneself, but underneath that is the need to be porous and real. Through the open heart, the world comes rushing in, the way oceans fill the smallest hole along the shore. It is the quietest sort of miracle: by simply being who we are, the world will come to fill us, to cleanse us, again and again.
--Mark Nepo, Book of Awakening

​​Being porous and real.  

I feel like my heart is at the ends of my skin - sensing everything,  It's overwhelming, this open heartedness.  And yet it is revelatory.  The world is rushing in, filling nooks and crannies with all manner of goodness and experience I never imagined.  

​Yesterday, I stood on top of the highest peak in the Columbia River Gorge with an extraordinary human.  Three years ago, I was heading into a massive surgery which could have limited the rest of my life while my personal world was unraveling.  Grateful is not a big enough word.

The World Comes Rushing In

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About the art:

This week's project in the course with the AMAZING Pauline Agnew was abstracting our own pond (or in my case, waterfall) scene.  The beauty of oils is there ability to go over dried acrylics, allowing an old painting to be used as the underpainting, with some of the colors showing through.

Using brush, rubber wedge, deli paper and paper towel and RESISTING the urge to succumb to realism. Also using a limited palette of colors based on one of Monet's pond paintings. 

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​The world is slowing re-opening.

Thanks to Cafe Eleven in Woodlawn for hosting a solo show of my work in the neighborhood!  It's spectacular to have art in the world and people to peek at it.

​Here's a little glimpse of the prep and the show!