Working Through

I started this over a week ago. Usually I tend to start and finish a piece in one or two sittings, but in this case, I started it and immediately messed it up. So I painted over most of the face, just leaving the right eye and then walked away for several days.

I would see it in my journal and not know what to do with it. Wasn't even sure I could really salvage it. Then last night, I sat down to work on it again and she emerged.

I'm always interested in how art becomes a metaphor for life and how we live it. In this case, there have been some things going on in my life that were kind of ugly that I didn't know how to work with. Usually when this happens, I keep working at whatever I don't like, afraid to leave it alone because I hate that ugly in-between stage when I don't know what form my life is going to take. It's not that things always turn out well--they don't. It's the uncertainty I have a hard time with.

I keep having to learn over and over again (usually through art) that there is a time for just leaving life alone. I need to let things germinate and rest so that their form can begin to emerge. That's what happened with this painting. It just needed some space to breathe.