It’s been hard staying focused and awake since the quarantines started.  There has been a new undercurrent of fear in our lives, in my life.  I have handled it the best I could, but I’ve not been very creative since March.  Then last week I started to paint for about an hour each day.  My actual plan was to paint for 30 minutes before dinner, kind of earn my vittles psychology. And It worked.  I began painting for longer periods of time.  I got my Rosie paintings done.  I started painting an exuberant clematis flower, and two other paintings where I just did what the paint told me.

Yesterday was a bad day for me.  A bout of depression and loneliness nibbled at me for part of the day.  Then I had a flashback to a traumatic event from over a decade ago.  Luckily, I talked to a friend, not specifically about what I was going through but about loneliness and how to manage it.  It reminded me that the past was in the past, and I really don’t have anyone in my social circle that feels threatening to me.  Even though it didn’t completely clear up my anxiety, I painted.

I got three paintings mostly finished and put the final touches on them this morning.

This one really created itself.  I started brushing off extra paint on a small 5×7″ canvas, until the colors formed a shape and then it became a story.  Definitely speaks to the anxiety I have.

I’ve been worried the impact this pandemic is having on vulnerable children.  I always have them on my mind because I have been one and I have worked with them, using art and stories to help them sort out their lives.  This painting started out as more of a cosmic abstract, but it changed to a child.

And then I finished my clematis painting.

Every day I didn’t paint, I told myself not to worry (though I did), I just needed a break and some time to process this terrible virus and the shutdown.  I needed to learn how to take care of myself during the reign of COVID 19.  And everyday I saw the clematis vine growing on my porch, and more around the corner at a neighbor’s house.  I saw a bit of spring every day.

I experienced a wide range of emotions, but again a friend and art brought me back to my self, back to where I could paint from that place where things aren’t clear, but have meaning nonetheless.

I hope you and your friends and family are doing well, too.

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