This art is as high as the clouds. It’s as ethereal and spiritual to paint as it is to look at. But, before I was this high, I was much lower. We all have low years, but I wanna talk about what happens if we take the lows for all they’re worth, and use them to get high.
It pushed me all the way down to the marshy bottom. I was like dead weight. By the end of a long hard year, I was broken and crushed. When I lost my dad on the last day of 2020, I sank. I described the feeling as treading water in a deep, murky creek. I lived in between panic attacks for the first few weeks of 2021. That was the murky, deep part; the feeling of uncertainty and unfamiliarity after a year that felt like it had pushed me under over and over again.
When I recovered from the darkest depths of grief, what I saw was the sky and all of the glorious color and light that surrounds me. I haven’t been able to take my eyes off of it since. The color and light of my surroundings are constant reminders of a promise, and the vastness of the sky puts the big picture of life into perspective. My Looking Up series of paintings float with an airy, breathy lightness. These paintings intend to drift both the eye and the heart upward.
Would I have ever started creating these sky light paintings if I hadn’t experienced that mucky, dark creek? Would I know this kinda color if I didn’t believe my dad was within it?
I don’t know what the right answer is. I don’t know whether or not I’d have ended up here, painting heaven, if I hadn’t gone through hell first. But I have my ideas. And, I believe that when I heard his familiar voice in a song that day in my studio, I was being asked to paint the earth and the space above it.
“If you could see what I see, you’d be blinded by the colors.”
I was created with a certain vision and a unique heart. I am a dreamer and a seeker; a dreamer of ways to bring color to my life; a seeker of light filled opportunity just waiting to be taken advantage of. I am a maker. I envision and create something where there was nothing. I think outside the box, the same one that I could never be stuffed into. I can’t be categorized or summed up in so many words. I am not simple or minimal. I am a lot. You might even call me “extra”, and that’s ok. This is my honest truth. And, being honest with yourself is the first stepping stone on the path to fulfillment. Knowing your truth is essential to creating a life that makes you truly happy.
How old were you when you realized you can do (within reason) whatever the fuck you want to do with your life? I was today years old. That’s how the meme makers are saying it. I was now years old when I ran into a figurative brick wall. I’m 36 and a half…. I’d say that's too young for a “mid-life crisis”, but then again, how would we know when we have reached mid-life? And, if you’ve reached the point when you need to pivot, who says you have to call that a crisis?? In the life story I’m writing, that pivotal point is the opposite of a rock bottom crisis. It’s more like reaching a peak and finally being able to see your surroundings, like getting your bearings, because now you know the way. But, that decisive point does often come after you’ve been in the lowest of depths. Many times you’ve had a trek through a muddy, marshy hell to thank for your new view.
The hard times are an opportunity. When you get through the rough patches, do you take stock and reassess? When you’ve lost loved ones or been put through the ringer yourself, do you stop and realize, what the hell have I been waiting for? NOW is the time to do the damn thing.
There’s never gonna be a road sign telling you when it’s time to leap. Those quiet tugs in the heart are the closest thing you’ll get to a directional sign.
After my hardest year, I felt God asking me one question after another: Will you continue to trust Me even when it feels like you’re drowning? When your heart hurts so bad, will you continue to hear it? Will you continue to have faith in My purpose for you? Will you believe Me when I tell you everything is gonna be alright? If I show them to you, will you look up to the millions of colors that surround you, and will you use them? Will you honor them? Will you sense the truth in them? Will you have the courage to tell your story?
Yes.
In 2021, everything looks different. Suddenly, I don’t see my time on Earth as something to desperately cling to and protect. I see it as something to use.
We are so careful with our lives that we don’t even use them. Like the fine china, we don’t even take it off the shelf for fear that it will break. When my dad would look at me like I was nuts to hand him one of my nice wine glasses, I’d say: “I’d rather see you using it just once than look at it in the cabinet forever.” In my house, we enjoy the nice things we have. If it was made to be used, I use it.
I answered those bold questions that were placed on my heart. I felt the tug, and I leaned. I believed what couldn’t be explained or proven, and the more I used it in my art, the more I sensed the ultimate color and light.
I believe in Heaven as a wondrous place. It must be like being submerged within the sky among a spectrum of spectacular colors, the ones that go on display when the sun comes and goes each day, when a gentle arc of color comes from a wretched storm.
“If you could see what I see, you’d be blinded by the colors.”
Faith is having confidence in what isn’t proven, only felt and sensed. It’s like climbing a ladder not knowing where it leads but trusting the force that’s telling you to start climbing. And, we start small scale on the first rung, but with each faithful step we climb higher, and the higher we climb and further we get from the safe ground, the more tempted we are to fear and doubt because looking down: “damn that’s a long way to fall.”. But, as we get higher the view of looking up gets better and better until you find yourself in the clouds, surrounded by color and light like you’d never witnessed. I’ve reach a new height in faith. And, all I know is I didn’t get here without first going through the mud and muck.
I believed my sour lemons could become something sweet. I used the bitter bite of loss to make art that looks like sweet lemonade tastes. I used my experience with pain to create a vision of comfort. This art is for you as much as it is me. Its purpose is to inspire us all to remain strong and faithful even through the cold, watery creeks, when your life feels like a bag’a sour lemons. Be inspired to look at hard times as an opportunity to climb the ladder. As you get up there, take in the view. Look up. Not just with your eyes, but with your heart. Witness the light. From what I hear, it’s so magnificent up there, we’d “be blinded by the colors”. And, now I know one thing for sure:
I want to get as close to that beauty as possible while I’ve still got a place on Earth. I don’t wanna wait for that kind of splendor. I want to know it now, in this life.
A faithful life grows us vertically. The higher we get into the vibrant clouds, the harder it is to settle down low; the more unsatisfying and disappointing it is to allow fear to shrink you into a small, dark box. I don’t want anything or anyone to tell me how high I can climb in this life. I want to live in my life like it’s a castle in the clouds. I want to fill it with art, music, friends and family and dance in the light for the rest of my days. I want to relish in all the color and light that surrounds me in this sweet spot I live in by Mobile Bay. I want to create paintings that celebrate and honor what has been created for us. I want my art to look the way these bodies of water make me feel. I want it to warm and settle the heart like watching a dreamy sunset with a chilly glass of wine. I want to make paintings that look like cold lemonade tastes at high noon in June. While I am on this earth, I want to keep us as close to the blinding color as we can possibly get.
“Pivotal Point” 48/36 oil on canvas / click here for information on available works from this series
view the full “Looking Up” series by clicking here or select FINE ART on home screen.