painting class.

yesterday when i was driving through capitol hill i saw a pennant in a car window...it read "despair!" in plain blue with white letters. and i found myself thinking about it all day.

fast forward to issaquah later that evening and after i picked bright pink, the first color to pop into my mind, i was still thinking about that pennant. I loved the exclamation point. i wondered if it has some cult meaning i didn't know about or if someone just randomly thought it was great enough to put up in their car window. i love the twisted sorta nature of a pennant like that. so, it hit me after i picked the pink color how much i would love to have this bright, cheery background with a sun just starting to rise along the bottom...maybe with flowers or fireworks, no definitely flowers...all over it. and then in dark messy writing a bold pennant, cheering for despair. and that's what i did.

it didn't turn out quite like i envisioned, and it is still a work in progress.

despair is defined as "to lose all hope or confidence" by the Merrian-Webster dictionary. i think that these two weeks of painting have brought me to that point once or twice. life does on a daily basis...being a mother, a wife, working in retail, you name it. and i don't necessarily think that is a bad thing. in a Pema Chodron book I read recently she talks about reaching a place of hopelessness. She says in a her book When Things Fall Apart "Without giving up hope-that there's somewhere better to be, that there's someone better to be-we will never relax with where we are, with who we are." for some of us, perhaps it takes hitting point of despair, which feels a tad bit more hopeless than hopelessness to me, to get to this place of serenity she is describing. so let's cheer on despair. let's not make it such a dark and avoidable word. perhaps through our everyday dips into despair, we can find our peace, if we let go of our attachment to hope. she is an amazing woman and i highly recommend her books. i know come meditation month, i will be delving into her teachings even more.

ok...so, painting class. it was fun. i loved being somewhere that encouraged relaxing into your creativity, not mimicking someone else. Our teacher Ricco was great, easy going and liked to laugh. a plus when you are hanging with me and dina and my mom. oh, my mom took the class with us too. i loved having her there. we all had such a different experience and ended with with completely different pieces. all speaking to who we are in life.

thanks dina for taking me to the class and out for a drink afterwards. always an adventure!

now back to my paintings....

xoxoxmelissa