Artwalk is always a great experience for me. It is an opportunity once a month to clean up, hang up my work and open my studio doors and have art lovers see–and respond–to my work. Wow, when most artists have a yearly exhibit of their work this monthly experience entitles me to an unequaled dose of good vibes. This month I had a woman get the “shivers” viewing and talking about my work and many people sought me out to tell me how much they related to my paintings. When this kind of dialogue happens I know that the paintings and the poetry of the paintings are relevant on more than just the visual level. This kind of layered response is so much of what I hope to evoke. The process of painting the works in the Reading Rilke series is a very personal journey for me and to witness others relating to this search for a sense of place and sense of being is such a sweet reward for the risk of putting myself and my work out there. The painting shown, Surviving the Parting, was wet on the easel for artwalk (the reason for the substandard photograph)and is going home with a dear friend. So thrilled that it resonated with her–for her own reasons.
Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened, like winter, which even now is passing. For beneath the winter is a winter so endless that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.
Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing. Climb praising as you return to connection. Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient, be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.
Be. And know as well the need to not be: let that ground of all that changes bring you to completion now.
To all that has run it course, and to the vast unsayable numbers of beings abounding in Nature, add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost.
Rainer Maria Rilke
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