« catch | Main | My Latest Painting »
September 12, 2006
SPC-with someone else
Now this truly is what "self-portrait" means right? You pick up a brush, you paint yourself! None of this confounded photography junk. Whatever, my camera broke (I knew it was crap) and I will be harrassing Office Depot yet again. It is hurricane season...bring it on!
This painting was done in 2001, it's of Joel and I in the Rogers home in Chattanooga Valley. These days Joel and I lay in bed and dream of being back amoung the tall grasses, red clay and corn mazes of Flintstone GA. After 5 years of being away and one weekend of pleasentries I'm more than ready. I feel like I need an upper or two to get all the stuff done I need to and still have an ounce for the kidlets. But I will be patient with God's timing and with my children and live.
We visited with the Englishs on Sunday afternoon and man, does it take your sense of time and space and pop-culture and traffic and fast food right out the window. In fact its a regular oasis of simple life. I mean you can read Real Simple and then you can live real simple. We sat with their family of eight and had venison with homemade from the garden tomato sauce, and homemade bread. Brownies from scratch with Breyers natural icecream. We saw the baby squirrel they were nursing back to health in the shed. We saw the brick oven they are building around back to bake bread Honduras style (they spent last year in Honduras). We saw the cabin that there oldest son is building with the boards from grandpa's saw-mill. We saw the pond they are creating with a dam that grandpa's buldozer helped make. And I gasped in awe as not only the kids but Tim himself (of course) swung over the great depths of the pond's banks on a rope swing, caught a young bendable tree, and let go of the swing, sat in the tree like a north GA monkey. He took Josiah for a ride and at the climax of the swings path I saw Josiah's little hands grip Tims shoulders with cat claws. I was burning inside that my crap camera decided to die just as we took the tour around the grounds. We have been to this house before and we have seen these children grow into independant thoughtful peaceful young people. I love seeing the dolls that the girls made out of flowers, pinecones, grasses and berries. It makes me ache to be so far from any experience like this. I never think I could live so far away, but just to be closer than an hour and a half would give me a center. The Englishs also reached out into our lives here in Atlanta and I felt myself wince at how little I feel I've grown. The community that I had when I painted Joel and I in this painting has been so quickly forgotten and replaced with nothing of better value. With Tim, Jennie and fam I can be simple. We can talk about impossibilities with little to no stress. Coffee and wine are richer there. And watching the years go by is not so hard. My 30th birthday is coming quickly. So is Jennie's 40th. I hope that I can find that flame that spurs one forward to the unknown and start up a fire of peace and satisfaction. Where my faith is like a warm jacket I wear to curb off the coldness.
I feel that community will take work, it will not just happen. I feel my rabid desire to attack the art world this fall will be hard and joyful. God is in these changes, my body groans. I feel my person needs to go into detox from all the stuff Atlanta has provided me. I am not from the big city, nor do I really live in it, but I cannot live in-between. Give me the smallness, the simple. I must find more of who God is in a place where I can see the stars and there are no smog alerts.
| By | 9:31 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://atlblogs.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/9060
Comments
beautifully written/beautifully painted, my friend. and oh wow, that place (and that family) sounds absolutely amazing.
Posted by: andrea at September 15, 2006 9:45 PM
I have so many similar longings! I love to see the gifts both visual and verbal on your site!!!
Posted by: tacy at September 15, 2006 1:55 PM
i remember when you were painting that- it's so cool!
Posted by: amy k at September 13, 2006 11:07 PM
what a beautiful image of this family and their life together apart from the busyness of this world.
Posted by: amber at September 13, 2006 8:12 AM
Katie, Another great piece ! Hope you get that vacation soon ! :)
Posted by: Sheri Burhoe at September 13, 2006 7:37 AM
