The actual title for this painting in my head is in Spanish – Cambia Todo Cambia, a song by Mercedes Sosa, an Argentinian Singer. She was called the “voice of the voiceless ones”. She lived during the brutal dictatorship in the 1970s, until she went into exile in Europe until the mid 1980s, I believe. I have loved this song for decades. There is a sadness to it, but also a comfort in that, well, everything changes and it always will.
…That which has changed yesterday
Will have to change tomorrow.
Just as I am changing
-Mercedes Sosa (translation)
For awhile now, especially since the November election, I have really been thinking about Octavia Butler’s book Parable of the Sower. If you have read ths two book series, you know why I have been thinking about it. If you know, you know. There is a phrase that keeps popping up everywhere I go that is from her book. My husband got me a tshirt for Christmas that had the phrase on it because he knows how much I love Octavia Butler’s writing. The week before my birthday I was at the Brumation exhibit opening at School 33 Art Center in Baltimore and walked into a studio there where the words were painted on the walls. And then I bought a blank journal from the artist whose studio it was with the words on the cover. She and I had gotten into a long animated discussion about the times we are in and how prescient Butler’s words were. She warned us.
I told her that seeing those words on her wall were like a welcome beacon. We agreed that all we can do is find others and hold onto the light. Because things are about to change, and in the darkness of that change, we need to find each other and create community with those who believe in a better, more just and more loving world.
All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change. – Octavia Butler
This painting itself went through many transformations. So many layers because of all the changes. The image comes from a photo I took in the meadow that I recently did an oil painting of. So many layers of life in a meadow. Nothing is static in a meadow filled with so much life. And the bird sits above knowing that change and growth is the only constant.