The language of letting go.

Two things occur to me about this at the moment, situations that have come up. The first is that I’m creating holiday cards to send out to friends and family. The second is that my best friend from the east coast texted me last night to say that her childhood home had been bulldozed.

To the first, I’ve stalled a little on the cards, partly because of the insanity of my self-imposed schedule (even with the simplified design of the card I’ve chosen to do for everyone, it’ll take 30 minutes, times like 20 cards… = ten hours; and my list has more like 40 people on it!). And partly stalled out because of the process around sending them, these handmade items, out into the world. Some people may have no problem with this, and consider it all a labor of love, but it’s nudged into a larger thing for me.

The cards will be okay, mainly because they’re all the same, because they’re being made with the intention of being sent out. But earlier this year, I hosted an art show with a group of my friends, and I sold a painting. I didn’t actually think anything would sell and was delighted when someone inquired, but also felt a sharp pang of “oh fuck”. The painting that sold was sort of a companion piece, one was called “The Rebound”, the other, created months later, was called “Safety or Before the Fall”. The first showed an empty mussed up bed by candlelight, with a naked girl tucked into a corner on a chair facing the bed, all you see are her legs wrapped up around her.

The second painting was of a woman’s hand resting on a man’s bare chest in sort of sepia-like colors, intended to connote a memory. The view most women will know instantly, it’s the view of cuddling, the view of sleeping next to someone, to me, it was the view of safety. That time in your day, whatever time of day it is you are horizontal with your lover, and for those moments, nothing is wrong. You watch your hand rise and fall with his breathing, you play with whatever strands of chest hair, or trace lightly on the skin. It’s a moment of zen for me. Of “all is right with the world.”

Now, of course, the second part of the title “Before the Fall” speaks to the impermanence of that moment. Which led to “The Rebound.” Obviously, these paintings are intensely personal and moments of my own life which I created with my greatest ability to offer the honesty and vulnerability of each of these moments. They were a part of me; a part of my past; and a part of what will always hold a place in my memory and my heart.

So a woman wanted to buy “Safety.” And because it was my first art show, and I was so excited to have an offer at all, and I didn’t know what an appropriate amount was for it, I sold it. (The Rebound I marked as “not for sale,” as that one, at least I knew was much too close a moment to let go of.)

Months later, I’m at an art show of a friend of mine who makes very spiritual paintings, each radiating a kind of passion, divinity, and connection. They are little portraits of love, and sometimes pain. And perhaps, often both. I asked her how she feels able to let go of her paintings when they’re obviously crafted with so much love and care. She said, firstly she prices them in a way in which she doesn’t feel “sold short”, in a way which she feels she wouldn’t “miss” them. (Not greedy, but not lamenting, like I am/was.) Secondly, she said with a specific set of her work, she did a process around letting go of each of them, in order to send them out into the Universe.

I didn’t do either of these with “Safety,” and I regret it. Were it a higher price, I still don’t know if I would have liked to have sold it yet. As such a fledgling artist, there’s still also a place in me in which every piece I make is SO precious because I don’t know if I’ll have it in me to do it again, and also, I am still sometimes astounded and proud of the work and don’t want to let it go.

Earlier this year, I made a portrait of a friend of mine that was very specifically for him, of him, of a San Francisco moment, and I had no trouble giving that away to him. It was a gift for a major milestone for him, and I wanted to honor that. And again, with the cards, knowing their intention is to go out into the Universe to people whom I love, that is easier. It’s these more amorphous recipients who I have trouble with.

Granted, I’m not in any art shows right now, “The Rebound” sits in my closet, but I’ll be taking an advanced oil painting class in the spring and imagine some more work will come out of that/be inspired by that class.

I don’t know what all of this means in my scheme of things, the ability to let go of my creations, but paintings have been different than poems, or even performances. A poem, I own, I wrote, I know that moment, and I have a document. Go ahead, read it, hear it, buy my chapbook ;) Performances? They only work because of you. A performance, to me, is absolutely the love child of performer and audience, be that performing theater or music. That’s part of the thrill of it to me, that each night, each performance is different. It’s a thrilling moment of co-creation.

I would like to learn how to set my paintings in a way where they can go off to others with a sense of completion and satisfaction, even joy, not with a sense of loss.

Lastly, I think having better documentation of my work than my cell phone photos could help me as well ;)

To the second item of letting go, my friend’s house – I’m out of time and room in this blog, but for now, a moment of honoring for that house, the haven it was for me, the home it was for her, and the memories we still get to share, 30 years later. Amen. 

 Safety or Before the Fall (June 2011)

The Rebound (March 2011)