I thought I had finished this painting over a month ago, maybe two months. But deep down I knew it wasn’t done. So I hung it up on my studio wall. I knew that technically I could say it was done, but that inner voice was telling me it wasn’t. I pulled it off the wall maybe two weeks ago and reworked it and again, It could possibly be done. But I was like, no, no, not yet. Then this week I finally had some dedicated studio time and I was determined to get it to a point where that voice would say, let it be, it is done. But still, no, it was throwing me off and i couldn’t figure out what to do!
It was too white, too pristine.
This morning I mixed up a graphite color for the bottom. and it immediately it felt better. I used my heated stylus and added the rusted red dots. But still the nest was too pristine, too perfect. And so I took my bottle of India Ink and poured black ink on top. Before I did that though, I took a deep breath and said, well, if htis ruins it, that’s ok, it wasn’t siting well with me anyway, But as I rubbed away the excess ink, my heart felt happier and I was like, yes, this.
Anyone who I have talked to for the past month in an honest way has heard me say that I have been feeling tired, despondant, enraged, and underlying everything- a deep grief. And yet, I still have this deep love for this crazy world, especially for the nests blown into my small backyard, the flash of the bright yellow from the American Goldfinch that visits the sunflowers that I planted from seed early in the summer, the glow of the moon in the night sky, biting into freshly a freshly baked cookie. And laughing at really dumb jokes as I watch Arrested Development on Netflix for the first time- why did it take me so long to watch this hilariously dumb show?!
Anyway, the first iteration of the nest was too clean and perfect. Nests in reality are these fragile vessels made from fragments and pieces of plants and fibers, woven beautifully, but messily. This nest actually had plastic wrappers woven into the back of it when I found it on the ground. The nests that appear in my work never have eggs in them. They are always empty, after the babies are gone. They have served their purpose and ready to go back to the earth. They came from the earth and they return to the earth.
I needed this nest image to speak to the past month I have been having. I need it to be a vessel that can hold it all- the grief and the beauty of this moment that we are here on this earth, and the resilience that will carry us through this storm. Hopefully.