Take Away the Sadness | Life on the Left Coast

Take Away the Sadness

Number Two Son Mike is long gone now, but his month-long stay here over Christmas and well into January was, to me, memorable. What a gift it was to hang out for all that time with my all grown up son who lives his life commuting from his home in Toronto to his other work home in the Arctic. I may not be so lucky again – I don’t expect it – but while it lasted it was grand.

After he left, I went back to The Bunkie to transform it back into my studio from its guest cottage role. It had been some time since I’d spent my days there and for awhile I had been feeling the urge to paint again.

It was January 20th and I was completely offline and for the next several days refused to go out where I might have to listen to someone make comment on that day’s event. I was not interested in engaging in that conversation; I had my own sense of depression to deal with, and words were not going to do it for me. As usual, without radio or TV news of any kind, all I had was music, a piece of watercolour paper taped to a board on the easel, a couple of pans of watercolours, some brushes and a bowl of water. It had been quite awhile since I had painted, and I didn’t really know where to begin. An ice breaker was in order, to loosen up and get going. When you don’t know how to begin, just begin.

So I put colour to paper, one stroke at a time, one colour at a time, mindless and mindful at the same time, and as I did, the hours passed and I found my body relax and my spirits lift. The music, the colour and the comfort of my space, eased my troubles, as did the forest when I went out to walk.

I stayed in for a few days, except for those solitary walks through the forest or along the beach, until the painting was finished and all the colours were down. No plan, no composition, no mixing – nothing but pure out of the tube colour. I looked at the finished result and I smiled, happy for the first time. I called it ‘Take Away the Sadness’, paraphrased from a favourite Van Morrison tune (Have I Told You Lately).

Since then the ice was broken – shattered – and I’ve been painting up a storm. Abstract bands of colour and texture and gold leaf and glitter – the sheer physical motion of pushing paint and gel and paste around to see what happens, and creating colour combinations that can’t help but make my spirits rise. Intuition without self-consciousness. Moving from darkness to light.

I’m very good, after years of on and off practice, at news blackout. But it’s different this time. It’s no longer enough to avoid the daily (hourly/minutely) news cycle. A collective angst is alive and out there and seeps into the posts of the writers of blogs and websites I follow – mostly normally apolitical visual art and science spaces. It’s interesting – usually the writers are apologetic for articulating their sadness – conscious of not wanting to spread negativity but not able to ignore their own needs to express their feelings. I get it. I’m doing the same thing right now.

It takes effort to turn away and actively seek out the happiness-makers. It’s a choice, which doesn’t mean it’s easy to get to. Here’s some of my happy finds lately…

Happiness-Making

Leonard Cohen: Live in London

In The Bunkie, as I’m pushing around colour and light, I like to watch concert videos sometimes and have accumulated quite a collection from the local used music store. This is not a new concert – recorded in 2008 – but was well worth revisiting, now in homage to a life lived. Leonard Cohen passed away in November, yes sad, but his art lives on. This is right up there with my favourite best concert videos ever.

When I was young, growing up in Montreal, hometown boy Leonard Cohen was the big crush of all the girls. A first glimpse of the power of the word – the power of the romance of it, and of course, to the impressionable teenage girls, the promise of sex. Leonard Cohen was 74 when he did this concert, and I’m here to tell you, he still had “it”.

Planet Earth II

For a visual mind blow, there is nothing better right now than Planet Earth II, the 6 part BBC series narrated (still) by David Attenborough. This has it all. Extreme cinematography, wildlife you may never have set eyes on before, story-telling, high drama and laugh-out-loud moments of visual humour. It’s been ten years since the last Planet Earth series and the changes in technology since then have enabled so many more gasp-worthy images. I love this show.

Shapes and Colours

No surprise there, but jigsaw puzzles are a favourite of mine since early days. Every year, after Christmas, I appropriate the dining room table, crack open another 1000 piecer and get to it. This year’s choice was particularly meaningful, after my autumn salmon-run stalking activities, and a beautiful painting as well. I CANNOT walk past a jigsaw puzzle without stopping.