It has been quiet around here for a while. No new blog posts or new videos and not nearly as much paint on my hands as I would have liked. Not because I stopped loving painting. Quite the opposite, actually! Life just got very full.
In November, my dad passed away. And last June, our daughter was born.
So often I spoke about how contrast brings a painting to life, how I love to focus on it and see how far I can take something. Naturally, life decided to give me the biggest contrast I could possibly imagine.
Grief and joy. Loss and new life. The deepest sadness I have ever felt and the biggest love I have ever known.
How Do You Hold Two Opposite Feelings at the Same Time?
I don't really know how to explain what it feels like to have these two things happen so close together. I don't think I can untangle them into neat little feelings either. I can talk about my dad and I can talk about my daughter, but when I try to explain what it feels like to be living with both events at the same time, words start falling apart a little bit.
One moment I can be completely overwhelmed by how much I miss my incredible dad. The next, I'm staring at my daughter and thinking I have never, ever felt anything like this in my entire life.
Somehow both things exist. It definitely confuses me and can feel impossible sometimes, but that's why my whole being is so much in love with painting: on my canvas, I don't have to decide which feeling belongs where.
I can put a dark colour next to a bright one and let them exist together. I can cover something up and let a little bit of it show through again. I can make something soft and then put something sharp right next to it. The contrast can exist next to each other in one picture, making it complete and even more alive.
When Contrast Becomes More Than a Painting Technique
I've always been drawn to contrast in my work. Light next to dark. Bright next to muted. Hard lines next to soft shapes. Something calm next to something completely chaotic. Painting doesn't ask me to explain everything, I can just respond to what is there and as a consequence, my mind can take a break.
I love what happens on my canvas when two things that shouldn't necessarily work together somehow make each other stronger.
My dad dying and my daughter being born are probably the two biggest emotional experiences of my life. They could not be more different, yet somehow they are completely intertwined now.
My dad knew he was going to become a grandfather and that means so much to me. When I look at her, I will always think about him too. There is sadness in that, but also so much joy. Gratitude for how I got to spend 32 years with him and extreme excitement of being a mom to this tiny creature in front of me.
I don't want to choose between those feelings and I don't think I even could. They are still very heavy, but slowly my paintings are holding them for me again. Something that feels like a big relief.
Showing Up Again
I've written before about how much I believe in showing up and I say it in my workshops all the time: you don't need hours. Messy and short creative time is still creative time. I am learning again that showing up can look very different depending on the season you're in.
Right now, showing up might mean I get to be in the studio once a month.
It might mean making just a few marks in my sketchbook before my baby wakes up.
Mixing colours for ten minutes and then having to stop to clean some bottles.
It might even mean walking into my studio, looking at everything and walking straight back out again because my family needs me.
It all counts. Sometimes showing up simply means making space for the possibility of doing it. Painting through my grief has taught me that creativity does not always look like a finished painting. Sometimes it is simply the act of returning to something that makes you feel like yourself.
>Finding My Way Back to the Studio
So this isn't really a fresh start. I don't want to pretend the last year didn't happen and suddenly announce that I am back and everything is going to be exactly as it was before.
The work I make now will carry all of this with it. My dad. My daughter. Grief. Love. Exhaustion. Joy.
All the things I haven't figured out yet. Including new milk stains, messy hair, cheering for burps and going for walks with the stroller. Probably a lot of coffee too. Motherhood is a wild ride.
I am so extremely curious to see what this all will look like on the canvas. Maybe the paintings will become darker. Maybe they will become brighter. Maybe there will be more contrast than ever. Maybe my workshops will hold more emotion, more play or new themes and formats.
Maybe I'll surprise myself completely. That's the good part: I don't know yet!
When life feels full of things that don't seem like they should exist together, it helps to have somewhere they can. For me, that place has always been the canvas.
So yes, I'm back in the studio!
Even if it is only for twenty minutes at a time.
