Room to Breathe, 2010
Each for himself, we all sustain
The durance of our ghostly pain;
Then to Elysium we repair,
The few, and breathe this blissful air.
–Virgil, The Aeneid, ca 25 BC
Got a bunch of stuff to get to this morning but wanted to share a favorite piece from the studio. Room to Breathe, shown above, has been around since 2010, making the gallery rounds and somehow always coming back to me.
That it returned always surprised me since it was one of those pieces that felt very close to me in spirit. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Maybe it was too narrow in its definition. I don’t know. I will never be able to fully describe why one painting appeals more than any other to anyone other than myself.
For me, it’s the feel of this painting that captures me. It is not joyful nor is it despairing in tone. It just is as it is, accepting of the present moment, freed from both the past and the future. The Red Tree here stands apart. I t symbolizes, for me, my mantra request to the universe: Just let me be. I don’t want to be bothered nor do I want to bother anyone.
As a result, there is a placid calmness in this painting for me. I can’t tell you how many times I have stopped to take in this painting and felt as though I’d absorbed a healthy dose of that calmness as I looked. It helps me when things start to get hectic, when I feel hurried and out of sorts.
Like right this very moment. Got to run.
Anyway, thought I’d share it along with some words from old Virgil and an old song from The Hollies that seems to be the final piece in my little jigsaw puzzle this morning. Here’s The Air That I Breathe.
Redtree Times 