"There is a Crack in Everything", 30" x 36" acrylic and mixed media painting This is a piece that I started yesterday and is now (I'm pretty sure) finished. The image in the upper left-hand side of the painting is an image transfer taken from a vintage Edwardian era postcard (I had the image enlarged) that I found in a flea market in Paris last January. The image depicts a woman with a long oar on a waterway in a long narrow boat. She appears to be labouring - and it resonated with me on a few levels. Especially her strength, her determination, the concept of this independent woman in her long skirt and feminine blouse - essentially steering her OWN boat. I love the idea of this 'oars-woman' striving to get to her destination(s) on her own steam, and with fierceness (I'm deciding that it's fierceness). YEAH!
The oar in the painting is poised as though to probe or even tear away at the stuff that's beneath the surface...and this tearing or peeling away reveals the cracks and the imperfections and the soupy mess...I like this. I like the idea of her scratching at the surface and seeing/revealing what's beneath...that it's all some primordial gunk and that some of it is nonsense. We all have this stuff. We all have messes too - some of us just hide them better than others. This painting is about embracing imperfection and life struggles...the cracks. It's also a nod to Leonard Cohen's 'Anthem' song lyrics "there's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in"...
"May you, every day, connect with the brilliancy of your own spirit. And may you always remember that obstacles in the path are not obstacles, they ARE the path." - Jane Catherine Lotter
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