Friends,
I had an incredible opportunity to create a large scale painting for a non-profit in Portland, Maine. To inspire this piece I travelled with my little family north to Maine. We spent a few days North of Portland in a tiny cottage on the water (that inspired this large piece) and a few days in Acadia National Park hiking and falling in love with Maine.
While staying at a little cottage on Harpswell peninsula, I took a paddle board out when the tide transitioned and paddled around a tiny island. I was captivated. The delight I felt with the trees and rocks, the water and sky. I couldn’t hold my smile in while snapping photos at intervals (with earnest care taken to not drop my phone in the water). This island was one of many, each one an invitation to explore and rest. When I returned to our little cottage I wrote myself the following notes:
Rest. Movement. Healing.
Every day, we are on the shores of renewal.
We are invited to live at this edge.
Where heaven meets earth.
Where life is filled with movement, possibility, loss and beginnings.
On these shores we remember what is true about us and others,
We remember the sacred human experience,
What we remember is beyond words.
This remembering is a deep truth that renews us.
The truth aligns and reverberates, crashing on the shore of our essence.
And we feel peace.
Not because everything is okay.
Not because we are certain how things will go.
But rather, because
We know this moment.
Where there is movement, possibility, loss and beginnings.
We know this moment
Where we find renewal.
It was delightful to spend time in the studio working on this large piece. I first did many smaller explorations, that now make up the Maine Collection (launching August 25th). There was something exhilarating with this large piece. A special energy in my chest. A sense of newness and vulnerability met with groundedness and familiarity. Though the size was intimidating from afar, I found comfort and ease as I stepped into the process. (This is so often the case for me that I fear something from a distance and than find less strain when I’m in process.)
This piece captures a sense of peace and possibility. The rocks, how old? The trees returning over generations. The water crashing on the shore--new each moment. Never the same. I find painting moving water to be a particular delight because it reminds me of the movement in my own life. So often I think my life is ‘same ol’, same ol’ and yet that is far from the truth and the ocean reminds me of this. I hope this painting will be a reminder of the energy of the coast, new beginnings, strong roots, being created anew each day.