Not Not Painting but Not Painting

“Well, I have not been Not Painting while I’ve been Not Painting”

His eyes widened for a moment while he considered this.

“Ok”, he said momentarily, “I think I get you grammatically. Can you say more?”

We were outside, standing just off the trail in a deep forest off Northeys Bay Rd, near Lakefield, ON. ( We went outside in July and essentially came back inside in August at violet hour, when the end of summer streetlights came on and called us home. )

I had packed a carefully considered traveling paint kit and opened it just once, but ended up diving off the dock into Pigeon Lake instead, and had not yet painted a stroke.

“It’s like I am painting, just in being, and witnessing all of this.”

Etrees

I spread my arms

I tried to find the words for how, when I was considering the air and the heavy hot slowness of  it, a colour, an undertone and a contour would come to mind.

Or how these brilliant green frogs shimmering with energy, poised between their frenetic sideways leaps had me mentally picking up a thickly loaded brush and making joyful short quick strokes

Something about how hiking and playing and paying attention, and exploring at ease with him, filled me. How I knew that when I got home after paying whole hearted attention to the reflections of these rocks and reeds, I would know the lyrics by heart, and my brush would pull out the song that was already sketched there and help it surface.

I don’t know that I found the words for all of my thoughts,
but he smiled, folded my hand into his and we walked on, through sideways jumping frogs.

Frog

Today was my first full studio day since getting back and I am covered in paint
and I had the best time revisiting that trail in between some commission pieces.
I’m excited to see where my interpretation leads

Aug2916

Related Images:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

8 + fifteen =