During subnormal days and even as the outbreak of normal is upon us. The Olympics go forward, although no audiences at the events…semi-normal. That’s where we are a covid purgatory. New variants invade my consciousness. What is safe, new and normal?
As I had discussed in a previous article, there is a normal that’s always been with us. Looking out my windows, wandering the yard. Peering down the alley. Hearing the quiet of the street. My meandering minds’ eye captures a moment, then another and yet another.
As a simple painter without a studio to anchor the mystery at the end of my brush, the need to satisfy my chain of moments remains ethereal but the chain still has a composition in each link, all without stepping beyond home and mind.
My world may occupy no more than the distance that my eyes can absorb, but it is also an entire world. It need not stretch beyond where I am. Accepting where my feet trod my easel comes to life.
The immediate sight offers me every opportunity to mix colours, blending on my palette, becoming the house, the tree, the vines. It never really ends. As with all we experience with our every sense there’s really no beginning and no end. As a leaf wilts and falls to earth the tree is fed by it’s decay, so there is no death or birth just a continuum.
Now I see it all with changing seasons, light, growth and all the colours of life. The sumac shines with every autumn palette. The brick of the house that shelters family shows age and renewal. My easel and brush visible to the few who pass and stop to wonder and give a distant smile, visible through a mask that signals another reality.
The small paintings reflect an intimacy in knowing where I am and whom I am with. The love on the canvas is the love of home and our normal.