Letting Go

“When you make a thing, part of you goes into it. It’s no small event to let one of your creations go out into the world…” Karen, last week.

Recently friends have inquired about buying my paintings. I was completely unprepared for this idea, and for my possessive feelings that followed. Olivia expressed an interest in the sunflower I painted last winter. I’m very attached to that painting, one of the first I made that felt like a real painting, my first attempt at painting pottery. I felt the same way I used to feel back in the day when one of our little boys wanted to ride his bike to the swimming pool alone for the first time. First thought: No.

One thing about thinking is that it’s almost always, if not always, a good idea to keep doing it even after I think I know what I think.

A few months ago Pat texted me a copy of the Call for Submissions to The Northfield Senior Center Members Art Show. She said, “You should submit.” I felt like some of my clothes had just fallen off. But, I knew I wanted to do it. Patsy helped me choose a painting to submit, and I enjoyed seeing my bird hanging alongside works by other artists. It was the first painting I signed, and now it’s the first one I’ve had framed.

I’ve continued to imagine some of my paintings hanging on walls out there in the world, away from me. Idea: I’ll make another sunflower painting. If Olivia likes that one, then I will let her have that one.

Watercolor on Paper 12/2016

Wrong. I painted the center of the big flower first because I decided there was no point in continuing if I couldn’t get that part right. As soon as I put one yellow petal next to that brown center, I knew that painting wasn’t going anywhere. But interestingly, I thought maybe the first one could go…maybe.

In the end, or at least currently, when I imagine a painting I made going off somewhere, off out into the world, it seems like a small part of me went on to be free, went on to live.