Curves

Part III-The Story Behind Painting #3

I've decided to do a freewrite tonight, because it's been awhile. And sometimes it's freeing for a writer to just write whatever comes out. Same thing for a painter. Or any person really...to just express--freely. I figure it fits the theme that I want to put out there tonight...in the painting, "Echo". It's the curves, the flow, the freedom expressed and conveyed---and very much experienced as I painted this piece. This might be one of my top favorite aspects of this painting. Love it. Love it. Love it.

I love music. Always have. I like to move. I like beats. I like rhythm. I like to sway. I dance in my car. I dance in my chair at the office. Sometimes I dance in my dark room. Sometimes I dance in the backyard with my iPod shuffle blasted. Sometimes I dance with the dog, Frodo. There is freedom in music--when you just let go...and move. God made music because He communicates to us through it. There is freedom. There is emotion. There is movement.

I love the wind. Always have. It's come to mean much more in the past five years of my life. It's a reminder and symbol of another presence. It's invisible--yet so visible. It's quiet--but so significant. The wind moves things. It makes my hair sway. It messes up my hair somedays. It cools me down when it's hot. It makes a breeze. It creates tornadoes. It makes waves on water. It makes trees sway. Wind is the way that I remember the Holy Spirit. Interesting thing I learned in seminary--the Hebrew word for wind (ruach) means "breath, wind, and spirit"--and a few other really cool things. YES! You better believe it. No wonder the wind has always spoken to me and been right there to remind me of something. I always notice it--it's like a whisper...a reminder.

There is wind in the painting. There has been since the first touchdown of a brush with black paint on it. I painted the colorful side first...and the first part painted was the silhouette of the woman's body and next her flowy hair. I loved it right away. There was flow. There was wind. There was movement. There was freedom. If you look closely, you will see wind depicted in the indigo section of the color spectrum. I didn't do it on purpose--but as I continued the painting I noticed that for some reason the brush made that section look like the wind. Nice. And, yes, there is most definitely a ton of the Holy Spirit in this diptych. At the end, I see it. I felt it in the process. Now I see it. And know what moved me to create it.

There are curves in this painting. I love curves. I haven't always loved curves. But now I totally do. This is where this painting gets a little more personal to me--and honestly, it's a beautiful part of my journey. And it means something. And it's even helped me to embrace God as my Creator. I was created with curves. Lots of them. I haven't always liked that I am curvier than some women, because in our culture, curves are not always embraced. I have hips. I have a tiny waist. And it just makes your body look like an hourglass. I know certain celebrities have been well known for this aspect--but sometimes in our culture it's hard. Clothes aren't always made to fit. And we don't always look like the Kate Moss model on the front of magazines. So--let's just say it's been a journey. I've needed to learn to love how God made me. And at the same time learn to be healthy about it, work to be fit (which is a lifelong thing), eat well, be discipline, and all in all--love me for me. And guess what? Somewhere in there, I learned that curves are not all bad. They are actually quite beautiful. And flowing. And free. For me as a painter, I love to paint flowing lines--there is something about it that feels less restricted than straight lines. As I was painting this specific painting--God revealed even deeper--the beauty and significance of a curve. The eye is drawn to it.

Maybe the curves are inviting because we know there are curves in the path of our lives. Maybe they draw our attention because there is substance in their shapeliness. Maybe there is something in us that is drawn to the flow that God depicts through curves.

Flow. Freedom. Movement. Wind. Curves. There's a lot going on in this painting because of these integral elements. I love these aspects. They are part of me. And they came out on the canvas.