When a Painting Tells You What It Needs to Become

Recently I started a painting of a woman with her fist raised, eyes open and glaring.  I was angry and frustrated about some things and decided to express those feelings through my art.  The painting was still in beginning stages but it had a direction.  Then, we had to say goodbye to our sweet 22 year old cat, Zoe. She was very old and starting to suffer.  It was her time to cross the rainbow bridge.  When I kissed her goodbye, I whispered that she would live on in my art.  I was thinking of all the books and paintings she’s been in, whether as a featured muse or a little cameo.  But when I began to work on the painting again it transformed into something else entirely.  It became about love and letting go.  The fist turned into an open hand releasing a butterfly, the woman’s eyes closed and many features of the painting changed.  Zoe’s spirit is the butterfly. The woman is at peace. Those changes were a conscious decision, although I felt the painting talking with me, telling me what it needed to be.  As I worked on it I became aware that this painting is about letting go of many losses and that it is about not only my own losses, but loss in general. Most of us have lost loved ones.  My husband and I have lost our youth and aspects of health that we took for granted.  We all lost a year of our lives due to the pandemic and many of us lost people to it. There are lost hopes, dreams and opportunities.  Along with loss comes sadness, regret and, often, anger. And, while I feel those things most of the time my work brings out the best aspects of myself.  I’m very grateful to Zoe and to the muse for guiding me to create this painting and for helping me to feel acceptance, if only for a time.