Confluence

Confluence
oil on canvas
24×24 inches
currently on display at GCDC

When I was entering the “almost finished” stage of this painting I was listening to the Krista Tippett’s On Being podcast where she interviewed Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman on Embracing Our Enemies and Our Suffering. Heavy title, but actually a really delightful listen. I listened to it several times since. Anyway, there was a part of the interview where Sharon Salzberg says:

In the larger context of what she was talking about, it was such an enlightening thought and one that I have always thought about- how we are all connected, all living beings. It is so easy to feel alone and isolated, but so many things have to happen in order for this very moment to exist. Every exchange, every thought. We are contributing to bringing this very moment about. I found it comforting to hear her words and thoughts. This is not what this painting is about really, but I wanted to share where the title came from and what was in my auditory background as I worked on this piece. I heard her words while I was working on the part of the horizon where all the lines converge in the distant.

This painting is an oil painting where I used cold wax to add body to the paint. I first learned of painting with cold wax many years ago when I was in college and stayed a summer in Chicago to work. I had signed up for a painting class though at the continuing ed program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago because, I guess intuitively I always have known that I needed to paint. We were painting live models and my instructor noticed the way I liked to really lay down the pain on my canvas and she brought over a tub of Dorland’s wax and said try this, I think you’ll like it. I was hooked. This painting was also painted using palette knives and Catalyst blades. I rarely use brushes in my recent oil paintings.