Power

"Backbone 2" Oil, Enamel and Charcoal on Canvas 24"x36" 2014

I saw a Bald Eagle fly overhead today. Fast on the heels of the first full moon of the year 2015. Two powerful symbols. I am excited for this coming year and what it holds. And terrified. As always. ;)
I also recently happened upon a Polaroid I took in my back yard as art student in the mid '90s. The image is mediocre of snow on a bush, blown out and bluish in the winter daylight. I put it up on my wall, not because I love that photo (I guess it's somewhat cool) but because I know what I was doing when I did it. I loved the medium. The process.  I still do. I loved using equipment not to capture exactly what I saw, but to capture and communicate a feeling about how I felt in the world and how I saw it as the beautiful I know. Unconventional, clumsy and rapt with emotion. Awkward and ignorant and stunning. Everything. All at once.
I feel that now more than ever, exactly 20 years later. I now have a career and direction in my practice and I still want to say the same things I did when I was 20. It's my power. I love it. We all have power, it's for us each to realize we do have the ability to affect people for the better all day every day. Whether we know it or not. That is a great power. I sometimes move myself to tears when I paint or edit a photo, or write. That's not not my ego speaking, that's power. I have created something that's powerful to me. And that's a gift. All we can hope for is that what we create in any capacity affects someone in a powerful (and hopefully positive) way.
2015 or bust!