Ellen, It's Almost Finished!

I have an unfinished painting that I started a few years ago. At this point I'm not sure if it was three or four years ago. I only know that we had already moved into the new house and we only had two kids at the time.

I showed it to my sister once when she was in town for a family reunion... wait, that might let me know how long ago it was... hang on... checking iPhoto for dates and times of the reunion... which was in July of '03. Dang. At least three years ago. At the time of the reunion I had been working on it for a few months already - at a minimum.

I have worked on it sporadically, most often late at night after everyone is asleep and I have had too much caffeine still in my system. And that may just explain the delay in completing it since I gave up caffeine for about a year or so in there. Silly.

So, while the idea for the painting came in a flash, the actual painting has taken a long time to complete. It's not that I didn't do other things in the interim. I did. In fact, I've completed several other paintings since I started this one. It's just been on the back burner for a while because painting this one makes my hand hurt after about twenty minutes or so working the canvas.

When I showed it to Ellen she indicated she liked the painting and said something like "hey, let me know when you finish this. I like it (hint hint)." Little did she know (which if you've seen Stranger Than Fiction you know is a set up to something big... something big that she did not know) that as of May 2007 that painting would still be sitting up on the easel in my studio. Unfinished.

This past week I got some creative juices going again and spent a few ours attacking the canvas making huge strides in getting closer to a completed work of art. It's so close now. So close. I just need a night or two of Mary not being on call, the girls going to bed right on time and the babe sleeping through the night, no last minute runs needed to the grocery store for milk, diapers or cat litter, shut off the email and cell phone and I can get 'er done.

I feel so confident that I can do that this week, that I'm going to post a sneak peak. I'm sharing this for two reasons. First, so that Ellen can see that I am making progress and second as a personal motivation for finishing it now that I've made a public statement about it.

So here's a bit of the painting:

And here's another bit:

I'll share more as I get closer to finishing it up. Stay tuned.

Ellen, It's Almost Finished!

To

A mind wanders seeking purchase.

Eventually, taking pause, it admits to no one but itself that it cannot complete the task it has set for itself.

For the mind knows the paradox that exists in needing to take a journey into the unknown to reveal what is needed.

And yet it desperately chooses, again and again, to leap from the safety of past knowledge, fully exposed, into the unknowable emptiness of new experience to find that which it does not know.

And then, upon emerging different, changed and new the mind sets about again to wander. To seek purchase of that which was not there before; knowing all along that which is sought is cannot be found. It can only be created melding new with old to create new.

It is the only way to grow. To learn. To create. To be.

To