(originally published august 12, 2022 via my Buy Me A Coffee page)
It's officially been a month and I'm truly wondering where time has gone! Last weekend I also celebrated seven years of living in Austin, Texas! Making note of all of these "leap of faith" moments have been wild to me. I'm seriously so grateful for your support, which has helped me show up and get from one state to the other week after week.
There were so many points I wanted to touch on in this post, but I forgot to save my first draft, so here we are. Although still wrestling to get the compositions of these larger pieces just right, I've somewhat found a flow in this space. Moving from wall to wall, table to table, sketchbook to canvas, hands covered in paint and then dusty with pastels. Sometimes the air is filled with music from my favorite playlist, and most days it's been filled with silence. There's even a small park down the street, fenced in by tall, bright yellow sunflowers that I escape to from time to time in order to clear my head, or write these posts.
One thing about traveling and living in different spaces, you quickly learn that you are very much always taking you with you. It's a humbling, enlightening, sometimes even frustrating feeling. God and I have been going over a lot these days. Like, what does restorative rest mean to me - and what does it mean to God? How does not speaking up for yourself and your needs + self abandonment go hand in hand? What prayers have I been holding onto with open hands, or manipulative hands? Is the risk of loving & creating art worth this much? Will I be okay if nothing but a grand therapy session comes out of this almost three month experience? And what can all of this look like within a painting.
I've had this running theme this year of giving most paintings its name and then working at seeing its breakthrough, layer by layer, step by step. Lots of internal workings over here. But all good thoughts to marinate in with hopefulness, nonetheless. My hands are moving, and even within all the questions, I'm at ease here.
studio wall encouragements
I've enjoyed being able to work out design and composition in such a quick and non-committal way with these
Here's a short recap of the last week :
Til next week in Jersey,
A