“WILD GRACE”
I think of grace as an unexpected gift. A moment of beauty, connection, or peace that arrives without being sought. I also think there’s another meaning I love: grace as the ability to move through the world with gentleness, even while possessing enormous strength.
I shared the story that inspired this painting but just a short recap-Along a mountain trail, where Mission Falls cascades and tumbles, I stood to breathe in the forest, as well as give my legs and back a break from the hike and climb, I (well we, my husband in the years before his death, and I) encountered something extraordinary. A bear, not just any bear but a grizzly, huge and powerful, moving away and very uninterested in us.
Awe, reverence, a whisper (probably a bit more than a whisper in truth) of fear, and an unexpected sense of peace.
I was a visitor in his world, grateful for the privilege of simply being there.
Perhaps that is the gift of the wilderness. It reminds us that we are not separate from the wonder of this world, but part of it.
It’s not a conventional wildlife portrait. It’s part memory, part imagination, part emotional landscape. There are places where the composition is crowded, where colors compete, where realism gives way to whimsy. Those are artistic choices I can continue exploring without sacrificing my individuality.
I do not paint to fit within the lines of someone else’s imagination, I paint for the joy of discovering what lives within my own. I don’t create to be admired, I am creating because I love the act of creating. If my art speaks to another soul, if someone connects with what I’ve made, that’s a beautiful bonus, and wonderful but not the measure of its worth. If it doesn’t, it has already given me everything I asked of it — the joy of creating.
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