A Blank Canvas

Late fall 2015.  Casa Grande, (Palm Creek) Arizona.

A holiday home for a month – a blank canvas and high hopes.

I took paints, containers, a canvas and an easel and set them on display on the table out on the patio.

For days I walked by the canvas as I went to and from the hot-tub, riding bike, playing a few games of pickleball or going for a walk.

Then I needed pain pills, an ice pack, a heat pack, stretches and rest.

I looked at the canvas with longing while I procrastinated telling myself I was just getting ready.  It was true – I simply needed to get into the space where I could let my hand, pencil and creativity connect with one another and then touch the canvas.

Rather like an exercise plan or a change to healthier eating or digging through a very cluttered closet.  There comes a moment, that space in time when one just knows to go ahead and take a step forward.

One day I did pick up my pencil.  I needed some stress relief and it felt good.  So much had been going on in the background of my mind filling up all the creative spaces and I first had to let the worry and concern leak out and give my head some room.

Just before leaving for our holiday an unwanted and unexpected stressful situation arose with a group I was involved in and potential loss of a friendship and it weighed heavily on my heart.

Driving had become so stressful since my car accident a year ago, with me always sighing in relief to get out of the car, either to stop driving or to ease the constant pinch in my back. It’s a long drive from BC, Canada to Arizona and  I drove because that is fair in a shared relationship but I didn’t exactly do my ‘fair share’.

This was my first large painting I was to try in that space of a year as I’d been focused on other areas of life like physio, massage, doctor appointments, fitness classes and trying to get myself back to what I believed my normal should be.

Once I began drawing my mind focused and shapes emerged on the canvas.  A fresh sense of excitement began to build and if not daily, then every other day I found myself slipping out the patio door and adding a touch of paint at various points on the canvas.

This stepping into my ‘painterly world’ continued for the next several weeks.

To me, this meant I was returning to myself and some deep part of me was healing.

Join me in future posts as I continue to share journal entries, slather on sunscreen for the outdoor daytime fun and while I slather paint on canvas to release the inner drive to feel full color again.