Redtree Times

Don’t have much to say this morning. To be honest, I am itching to get at a panel on my easel that is at that crucial point where it begins to fully take on life. The most exciting part of the process.

I was thinking about this the other day while working on another new painting. The initial phase of compositional layout was great but from there on it was kind of a slog. The more I painted, the more dissatisfied I was with how it looked. I thought at the time that in earlier points in my career I would have hung it up, just let it go and move on to something easier.

But I had experience now and knew that this awkward part was just how this sometimes proceeded. You had to persist and use your know-how to push it forward, trusting that the grace contained within it would at some point emerge.

That little bit of knowledge comforts me in those rough moments during the creative process. And the painting I was working on turned out beautifully, at least in my eyes. Full of grace and color and a life all its own now. 

All that I can ask of my work.

For this Sunday Morning Music, I am going with a song from the great Jazz singer/songwriter/bassist Esperanza Spalding off her album, 12 Little Spells, from 2019. On it, each song is devoted to a part of the human body. This song, Lest We Forget, is devoted to blood, how we are all united to one another and the earth and the stars.

Everything is written within us.

Anyway, it makes for a lovely way to kick off a Sunday morning, with a reminder we are related to everything and that have the ability to bring that grace to life if we simply persist.

Lest we forget.