Who’s to say when we will have an angelic experience. It isn’t planned and afterwards, it is barely believed. Often it is written off as coincidence or even denial that the whole experience even happened. Still, today I am inspired to write this experience down.

Yesterday we set off for a hike in the woods. The mountains still held on to the last of the snow and it was dreamlike coming across the mountain ridge.   It gave me pause to stop and be grateful for what I had and how I am living in this very moment.

The three of us, my husband, dog and me traveled with crunching ice below and occasionally stopped to take photos or a water break. The air was thin and the mountains purple blue in the distance. The trees stood like guardians protecting their land and owning their place.

We were all in the moment, until I started to daydream. It was then when I wandered with my mind to the future that my foot hit the large slate sideways titled rock and my body lurched backwards, startling me, as I came crashing down, bottom first onto the rock with my head at full force headed towards a sharp jutted out rock. I didn’t realize this until I got up.

When my head followed my crashed back into it’s projector onto the jagged rock, I felt a brush of the rock on the tip of my hair and then my head was lifted up and supported . For that moment, I paused and held the position. I knew something special had happened.  Could it have been my angel interceding?  I came away from this experience unscathed with just a bruise on my palm and my “life line” on my palm altered in a jagged cut right along the life line. 

I wrote it off, but today it lingers again and I say, “Could it be”. I go back and forth with the possibility of it being an angelical experience. I say “yes’ now and so put it in writing on this blog to confirm to myself the reality of the unseen and the gratefulness I feel.

The EPILOG to this story is that when I went to my collection of work to see what would be pertinent to this message, the first thing I saw was my new figure, “Afternoon Thoughts”.  Could this be my angel? 

Paintings are mysterious and always seem to precede reality, like pointers.

Often I paint off our lake dock on the end of the cove where we live. It’s a gorgeous setting where you look out to the west and clouds gather on the horizon. Every scene, every day is new based on the weather, light and my perception.

I set up my easel and bring down large canvases from the studio for a quick plein air in an abstract impressionistic form. My friend calls this area, “Inspiration Point”.

Anything can happen on the dock. You can also find yourself in a whispering wind that turns into a black-clouded storm in just minutes as you try to negotiate and barter with time to finish the painting. The weather always wins and suddenly your painting is “off the dock” floating face down to shore.

Still, it’s all worth it to capture the moment. Many paintings are just started there to get the energy and completed in the studio.

It prepping for the southern snowstorm to hit the lake today, I went down to “Inspiration Point” and buttoned down the hatches. The wind was already picking up so I knew my time was limited. This wasn’t a painting day; this was a form of “Anutie M” day with now 15 mph winds in the low 30s. As I spun around with bungee cords I heard a plunk go into the lake. I looked over the boards and saw my little dog with her winter blanket on swimming for survival. I jumped straight in with my sneakers, ski jacket and fully clothed without a thought. I handed her up to my husband and he ran her up to the house. She is fine.

I couldn’t believe that I never felt the cold. I kept saying all the way up that the water wasn’t cold and not even the wind against my wet clothed skin was cold.

I am one of those “toe first” people that go into the lake. I chill at the first touch of water in July. When I told my friend about the experience she said, “Love is Warm”. I was so moved by that, that I had to write this blog.

What we do for love is outside the realm of reality rules. This now, I know for a fact. It’s an awakening.

The painting featured here is one that was started at the lake on such a day when the wind was just a whisper. As it began to turn, I knew it would be a gusting storm in no time and brought it back to the studio to finish. It’s called “Whispering Wind” and is 36 x 48 inches, acrylic on canvas.

You can say more with less.  Just as Picasso strived to have minimal lines to communicate the message of love with the hands grasping a bouquet of flowers.

I approach my figures with space between the lines so the individual viewer can enter in and create their own stories, filling in their own lines.

This coming Monday I will be offering a Contemporary Figure Workshop from 10-4 at the Quinlan Visual Arts Center in Gainesville, GA for artists of all levels, even rank beginners.  

It will be a day of communication through lines, expression through choice of lines and creating space for connection of the artwork to the viewer.

I often say to students, painting the figure is like writing.  Anyone can learn to draw, anyone can learn to write,.....who will take that writing to poetry? Who will take that drawing to visual communication and connection?

The passage of time is space between thin lines.  In this intersection we see the future being sized up with the past looking on in silent commentary. 

 The past, the exhale, the future, the inhale, the present the pause between the two.

 Happy New Year! 2022

This work is painted from the model and is 48 x 36 inches acrylic on canvas

Just completed on the time passage cusp of the New Year 2022

"