Return To Easel pt 2

 Every time I return to my easel it feels like a miracle. Like a magical occurrence of returning to a place I never thought I’d see again. Every brushstroke settles a rattling in my chest. It feels like a gift, shinny and tied up with string. I’m at peace. 


I haven’t been able to paint much, not in the last year or so. I’ve picked up a brush yeah but I haven’t really painted. Painted where it comes tumbling out, like stumbling into bed at night, honest and sure of foot. I started to come back a little while ago, but I hadn’t been truly been back till now. 


I began with a painting that I’ve needed to paint for years, a letting go of dreams lost, and I’m not quite finished but I feel ready now. This week I finally stopped with the excuses too. Got my but up out of my chair and poured my heart out into the paint. Felt good, like being washed by the waves. 


Yes, I finished an entire series of paintings last year, and I’m happy I took on the challenge, but it hasn’t sat as close to my heart as these ones to come. I am glade I completed the task I set out to, if nothing else than to be able to say that I did. I think it helped to erode away some of the pain in the way, but now I want better. I want to paint the things that sit oh so close to my heart. 


I wanted so desperately to find God in art and art in God, and I got a little lost along the way. Wasn’t able to realize that He was there all along. 


I made a new kind of deal, a realization of what I wanted to do, that I was simply going to paint what I saw. Not paint what I thought I needed to, or what people would like, or what I thought would sell, just what I saw. It’s the perfect kind of freedom I was looking for, kind of freedom I needed. 


So cheers, to the first of many without explanation, I hope to stay here a long while. 







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