Monday, November 30, 2020

Pileated


 Pileated Woodpecker / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping! 

sold! 

I REMEMBER ALMOST NOTHING from the weeks and months after Peter died, and this mystifies me. I was in such pain, I was so filled with grief and shock, I would think that these emotions would have plastered themselves, along with my actions and experiences, into some sort of indelible memory. 

Instead, the very opposite has happened. Days, weeks, months are gone. 

The first bird I painted - or at least, the first bird I posted - was a bluebird, on Jan. 2. Peter died on Oct. 10. I know I had this bird-painting idea as a solution to the sudden problem of not being able to do shows, because of the dogs, and because I was hurting so much. I know I wanted to get ahead with the bird paintings, for my own peace of mind and also because (and this astounds me now) I was planning to drive to Arizona in late January to visit my dad and Paula. 

I don't remember painting the birds, not these early ones. I remember the paintings, when I look at them, but not the process. I write in that Jan. 2 post that it is my second day of the bird project - but there seems to be no first day. 

That is what this all feels like - I know things happened, and people visited, and helped me. I know I went places and did things, but it's just not there. 

And maybe that is all for the best.

***

Coda

"If you have anything really valuable to contribute to the world, 
it will come through the expression of your own personality." 

- Bruce Barton



“If you have anything really valuable to contribute to the world,” said Bruce Barton, “it will come through the expression of your own personality,

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