Late in life, I suppose, though it didn’t feel it at the time, I began to be interested in creating art.  In truth, I had always had some creative bent, though it tended much more to the Crafts than to the Arts. In any event, just shy of the half-century mark, I began to paint.

It started with a class–no, not one of those “Paint Night” in a local bar classes, but an actual one, with an actual artist leading us through a process called “Passionate Intuitive Painting”. At the time, my life was not happy in some ways– it was a bleak time in my job, and in some of my personal relationships that were impacted by the strife between union and government. It’s the sort of strife everyone seems to have a stake in, as they are in school, have been to school, or have children or grandchildren in school. On top of all that, I was developing some weird sort of food intolerances (for a glimpse, see this post) and ended up not finishing the series of classes. Eventually, after the strike and a change of position and the mending of some friendship-fences, I returned to the gallery and worked on the two canvasses I had started.  I remember feeling torn when I saw them again, half finished as they were, liking the direction they were taking me, but not trusting the process.

Boy, how many times do I need to learn to Trust the Process? I get that it’s a Process, it’s the Trust part that I struggle with.

In any event, I quickly completed one, and have been happy with it since, but the second one just kept….. eluding me. I glanced sideways at it this weekend, sitting on the floor of the room I paint in, and she revealed herself to me, at last.  Along with the vision came the words, and so, if you will indulge me, here is the story of The Minx and the Madrona.

Some years ago, actually coincidentally (or maybe not at all coincidentally), I went on a retreat to try to figure some stuff out.  One of the conversations I had (with a reflexologist) was to more deeply understand that my urge to nurture (to mother) was strong, often to my own detriment.  My icon (or spirit animal, if you will) is an Arbutus, a tree also called Madrone, as it “mothers” all the other trees around it by protecting and nurturing them.

I could see the human figures emerge, but I couldn’t connect them.  I started to add some words and quotes, and then I realized, that these weren’t just human figures, they were women.

And part of the mystery of woman hood is the secret lives inside of us, sometimes bits revealed to only certain people, sometimes a secret forever.