14 April 2024
Grace in all her forms
Despite my secular demeanor, I confess (sotto voce) that I have an angel in my life called Grace. She circles around me somewhat invisibly I think, at all hours. She’s 24/7, like an Emergency Room, and she is available for a chat, zoom, or interrogation at any moment of the day. She’s omniscient, but not an omnivore so there’s no problem there. She’s not shy about showing up at moments when I least expect it but always weem to need it. For, example, When I’m about to serve at the baseline on the tennis court, losing 0-40 and in a pickle, I’ve often asked her, (politely) “Grace, please give me an ace”, and surprisingly, she frquently she comes through for me. I don’t believe in God but I do believe in angels.
The other evening at the beach she showed up as a magpie, but the day before, as a young bush turkey who hung around me for almost the entire session, snooping around my backpack, but believe me, I’m not the superstitious type, not paranoid, nor narcissist or conspiracist. I’m just a painter who has faith in what the Greek poets used to call the ‘Muses’. We mortals have the paws and claws to navigate the hills and dales of earth but they hold the wisdom and the inspiration that guide us.
Grace, for all her wisdom and beauty, has a voice like Wilma Flintstone. When she chides me gently with her hoarse, coarse voice, I bow my head and take it. She’s calm but stern and she shows exasperation in any number of ways when I don’t pay attention. Though I‘m a grown man she still considers me a child. Whatever my mood, she will appraise me with an ironic air like a six year old when I’ve spilled jam all over my Sunday best. But that’s just the way it is for us mortals, it’s a contractal thing, I think. We just have to take it, but for my part I’ve come to trust her implicitly.
But that’s only one of the many sides of her, for she is joyful too, like when I’ve done something well, especially on the dunes after productive session. And she’s full of mirth too, happy, but at times with the mouth of a union guy from the Bronx. She has a wicked sense of humour because I couldn’t abide by an angel all stony and cold like in the churches of my youth. But, to be frank, I haven’t quite figured all this out yet. It’s still kind of new for me and I’m just going with what I understand at the moment because I see that my life runs smoother with an angel hovering overhead.
This is the second one of two pictures from a few nights ago. Though I don’t generally spend a lot of time on these things, each of these two, took about twenty minutes each, which is a lot for me. Both are a little more developed than usual because I’m piling on more pigment in layers. I’m throwing paint over wet paint which is somewhat tricky. Some are quite skilled at this way of painting but I’ve never been, not in one quick session anyway.
It was a magnificent ‘Bloom’ but it didn’t last too long. When I began it looked like it might it stretch into the night but it petered-out quickly, probably due to the half moon which was watching benevolently overhead. Still, I’m happy with it. it is more developed than much of what I have done in the series. Maybe I’ve developed more trust that I won’t lose my way in painting. There is alway so little time to catch something that works. Perhaps I need more confidence and faith in myself.
But to be out again and painting at the beach is both a great pleasure and privilege. After so much rain these weeks (and months), Grace continually reminds me not only to be grateful, but graceful too. And this I find funny because it’s an adverb that few of my friends would attribute to me. I’ve always been a bit maladroit due to my uncertainties in this lanky body. Her reminders are heeded. I know they not admonishments, but more like gentle mantras whispered in my ear when she is the wind.
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