Epiphany (2015)
I think a lot of people have unreasonable expectations because they never stop to consider what life actually has to offer them. They’re always looking for some great epiphany from the skies. They never stop to consider the fact which human beings find hardest to recognize: “Maybe I’m not worthy of an epiphany.”
–Robertson Davies, Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)
The painting above, Epiphany, is another painting that will be heading to the Principle Gallery for my June show. It’s a painting that satisfies me on several levels. The contrast of the corona of light around the Red Tree against the underlying darkness of the black underpainting and the deep reds and yellows are right in my sweet spot. It also connects with me on a personal level, bringing to mind a very early painting that I might consider my one true experience with epiphany.
The word epiphany, of course, denotes someone experiencing a sudden and profound realization. A Eureka! moment. I never really thought about such things before. I mean who has time to seek something like epiphany when you’re just trying to get by in this world? And even if I had thought about it, I would have no doubt ascribed to the words above from the late Canadian man of letters, Robertson Davies, that you could waste your life seeking something that will never be available to you while the miracle of this world and our existence in it is in plain sight all the time. I am pretty sure I would not have seen myself as being worthy of an epiphany.
But you never know, do you? After my accidental fall from a ladder brought me to painting in late 1993, I began to spend several hours a day painting in between my job as waiter in a pancake house and working towards completing the construction of our home. I didn’t have any expectations at that point, never saw it doing anything other than providing an outlet for expressing pent up emotions in a constructive way. I would have been happy with that.
Well, I think would have been. It didn’t turn out that way so how can I really know what I would felt if that had been the case?
Anyway, as I worked in our back bedroom for several months, I began to feel that my painting had something more to offer me but I wasn’t seeing it. And to be honest, I had no idea what it might be or what it would even mean if I were to come across it. How would I know such a thing?
I tried to not think about such things and just focused on what the painting was giving me in the moment. Just seeing it develop and progress seemed to be enough.
One evening that summer, after doing my morning shift then working for a few hours on our house, I went home and sat down to paint. I was working on a small painting and suddenly it beckoned on me that what I was looking at was exactly that thing I was looking for. It suddenly had form and substance. More than that, I could see it in a flash that it instantaneously opened a path forward for me. I didn’t know where it would lead but I knew that it had to be followed.
I remember so distinctly that moment. I felt a giddy excitement that was a shock to me. The hair on the back of my neck was raised and my heart was racing. I didn’t know what to do. I mean, what do you do when something hits you like that? Nobody told me that something like this might happen. I needed to tell someone about this, but Cheri was still at work.
First View (1994)
I paced anxiously for a couple of hours, waiting for Cheri to return. I met her at the door and made her follow me into the back bedroom. I picked up the small piece of watercolor paper that held the painting. I can’t remember exactly how it was phrased but I said something like, “Look at this! Look at this!”
She looked then replied, “Yeah. It’s nice. What is it?”
“You don’t see it? That’s IT!”
“What’s it?
“This is what I have been looking for. This means something. I don’t know where or what, but this is going to take us somewhere.”
I told her how it came to be and my explosion of emotion when it appeared. I still am not sure she was impressed or convinced by what I was saying that night. In retrospect, I can understand that. It’s a quiet, simple little piece. It doesn’t yell or wave its arms to grab your attention.
But that didn’t matter to me. In my eyes that night– and even now– it set off explosions in me that blew down walls that had been hindering me from seeing the path that was now before me. It felt like it had opened up a whole new section of synapses in my brain that I had not been using up to that point.
I later titled it First View since it felt like I was looking at a newly discovered and unexplored vista. This unassuming little painting still retains its power for me. Every painting since this piece has been an attempt to recapture that explosive reaction that I felt on that summer night in 1994. There have been potent and wonderful moments from other paintings but none that came close to the feeling this painting provided.
Was that an epiphany? I don’t know. But if it wasn’t, maybe like Davies said, I wasn’t worthy of an epiphany and will probably never experience one. I don’t know that I could physically or mentally handle a real epiphany if that wasn’t one.
But epiphany or not, the painting above symbolizes and very well captures that moment from 1994. It is a direct descendant of First View and being so, carries elements from it that speak clearly to me, providing moments that recall that first epiphany, if that is indeed what it was. Letting me know that I was not mistaken in following the path I was given.
And that satisfies me in all the best ways.
What more can I ask?