This is a painting that I finished over the weekend. It’s 10″ by 30″ on canvas and is titled Hasten Down the Wind. If that sounds familiar you probably remember the old Warren Zevon song from the the 70’s most famously covered by Linda Ronstadt on her album with the same title. It was a pretty big album at the time. I just always loved the imagery in that phrase– hasten down the wind– and thought it fit well with this piece.
The song is about the end of a relationship, where the girl recognizes that nothing is working for them any more and the guy finally grudgingly admits it as well, telling her to leave , to go hasten down the wind.
I see this in this painting with the Red Tree reluctantly holding onto those leaves as they struggle to depart on the wind even though it knows that it has to be this way, that they must leave. There is something bittersweet yet liberating in this idea that sometimes things are just not meant to be. We often hold onto things–people, ideas and hopes and dreams– that don’t truly fit with who we are with the thin hope that things will somehow change to match our perceptions. But recognizing that this is not meant to be and letting these things go allows us to perhaps find our truer selves.
In short, we sometimes have to lose things to reveal who we really are.
A famous personality once said that when we are very young and do not know what we need, we absorb all that we can, but after we get older, we should abandon those that we now understand are unsuitable for us. This is indeed a rather thought-provoking issue.
Yes, sometimes those things we absorb as we are young do not grow with us and must stay behind. There’s a great entry on BrainPickings.org that illustrates this very point with a book from the great Shel Silverstein.
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/02/12/the-missing-piece-meets-the-big-o-shel-silverstein/
Thanks. I like the painting and agree with the sentiments (as well as applauding all references to the much missed Warren Zevon). Regards Thom.