Springtime…we made it!

March is my favorite month. Spring is possibly my favorite season, although I am an optimist so I find things about every one except mostly winter I adore. Always feels like crossing a finish line of a marathon. Between Day Lights Savings, the first official day of spring, things starting to bloom, random warm days…it’s a deep, deep sigh of relief. My birthday is also in March and I tend to historically be on the happy side about that. It’s the 25th and I call it the 25 days of Christina, because, well…I mean, right? All in all, a rebirth. The start of new things. New age, new year. I have always jokingly said that my New Years Resolutions don’t start until March. Once you make it out of the depths of the coldest days of winter you feel a bit more apt to reinvent. It feels a bit more natural, cyclical, no? And those hot humid days towards the end of May when we begin to fade into summer…the days we are in right now…oh buddy, my soul flies. My heart lives for that mid summer North Carolina humidity, my hair does not.

This March was a bit off for me. So was April. Which is why I am sitting here typing and finishing this thought stream from this sentence on at the end of May. I have come back to it every so often the past few weeks and just didn’t have the words yet. The hopeful light of the coming spring at the end of the tunnel that got me through the coldest of winter days didn’t bring with it the entirety of the blossoming fanfare I have come to love. Well it did, but it also didn’t. You see, springtime is peppered with family birthdays for us…including my mom’s…and then there is Mother’s Day and Easter too…lots of occasions for the family casseroles. Which we still did, mind you, because I refuse to be had by Hallmark. It took me a moment to gain my footing coming out of winter and each time I did one of them popped up and made the deck a bit slippery and bumped my rudder a bit portside back to where I had just been.

Here is the thing about rudders, rudders only work if the ship is under way…

Hope deferred. I think I convinced myself that when the pollen turned the petals pink I would feel a complete and utter surge of revival in my bones. In my soul. A shedding of layers that had been dragging me down. But grief can be weird like that. Your favorite drink gone flat. And, so, I took another moment. A moment to lean in to that. To learn from that. A pause. To absorb. Discernment before speaking…before painting. I did an even deeper dive into the archives. Of my art. And of my story. My therapist loves this (I’m winning therapy by the way).

And there in the Carolina red clay that was soaked from the season’s sprinkles and showers I crawled. There in the frustrating flurry and unearthing of the weeds and the tugging of the gnarliest roots that caught and tore and ripped and wounded….things were still planted. The messy in between literally and physically ( I did a lot of yard work- projects are good). And then they bloomed. Trips were taken, long awaited adventures were had, smiles cracked through, and the dirt caked exhaustion of toiling gave way to new growth, new blooms.

The thing is…I wanted my springtime to be filled with big, BIIIIIG blooms. Big mature oak trees shading blossoming bushes taller than myself with their ancient of days twists and turns. I deeply wanted (and in some ways almost felt I was indebted) the reprieve of a full on magical, twinkling, springtime garden. Bistro lights included. But, when a leveling happens…sometimes you are left with debris. I didn’t want to rake and shovel and pick axe at the mud caked weeds and roots that were left. I’m exhausted. I didn’t want to wait on the growth that takes place when new seeds are planted. Willing, pleading, and praying week after week and month after month, begging God to see the tiniest green shoot pop out. But, that’s what had to be done. Surrender and abide.

this is a growing season,

of change, of turning, of shedding,

of letting things fall away,

and fall apart, and come undone,

and be uncovered

and then a space of surrender,

and being, just being.

and the reflections here

are temporary, so take them in and

honor them, and be honest with them,

and own them…but then forgive them,

and don’t stay in them

let it all go…let yourself bloom.

-butterflies rising, “wild spirit, soft heart”

At the sage advice of my dear friend whom I call my “big sister,” I spent some time and fondly re-discovered some of the paintings from my portfolio archive that started it all and re introduced them to the world. Then, inspired by some springtime thoughts and travels, I hunkered down in my studio to labor away at four new medium scaled paintings inspired by it all. Four felt significant to stop at. Four seasons. The foundation of four women in my family with my mom and sisters, my pillars of femininity. Four generations that shaped me. Four of the dearest loved ones that Every. Single. Day. Religiously. for the last almost ten moths have diligently drug the four corners of my mat when I needed it most. Four. Four. Four. Such a powerful quartet. The idea first came about with some time spent down in Charleston, SC early this spring. Everything was in early bloom, a sight for sore eyes, and the window boxes were a sight to behold. Window boxes, I thought. That’s what we are doing. I found some old abstracts from a few years ago that I had held onto and decided they needed new life too. Blooms happened. And there was freedom in painting over the old layers whichever way the wind took me that day. Neat containers of wild shoots of color and life. My big ah-ha took a minute to fully execute but I’m thrilled with where we landed.

So, as I leave you with this thought stream on springtime and we head into the deliciously heavy and humid spicy air of summertime I also wanted to leave you with my takeaways from this spring season. Because we are journeying through them together this year. So, here we go:

-Art is timeless. That’s why we make it, right? It’s why museums exist. In a very consumer focused presentation on social media and the instant gratification of today’s temperature it can be easy to fall into the trap of always grinding out new, new, new. An assembly line production mindset that somehow negates an appreciation for pause and makes the illusion of “value” in the next and the new. A focus on consumption. Now. Art is perennial.

- You can paint over things. Nothing is too precious. You can change your mind and change your direction. Pivot at any point. You are not bound by what was or what defined you then. These four works were painted over abstracts I had left from a series I did several years ago that I had held onto. I still liked them. But I decided it was okay to change them into something else that better reflected who I currently am as an artist. This season. There was such immense freedom in this.

-Art is not a luxury. We often treat it as that. It is actual sustenance. When you are desperate to make sense of life…enter art. We need it. To make it. But more importantly, to see each other’s humanity in it (this is all summarized from something I heard by actor Ethan Hawke). It is my greatest hope that in sharing my work, and the thoughts behind it here in the blog space, and the inspiration photos I post that I am always meeting you in your humanity too and pointing it all back to the One that holds it all.

-And lastly, I’ll let this speak for itself:

“It’s time to embrace a different story about everything you’re growing. It’s time to have faith to believe what your eyes cannot see. The most beautiful things in this grand old world began as seeds that waited in the dark. Every oak was first a burried acorn. Every corn plant was first a dormant seed, waiting for permission to crack open- a tedious and glorious breaking- before pushing against the earth with striking force, then creeping skywards slowly. Your seeds aren’t dead. They are waiting. The darkness under the soil isn’t a graveyard. Your seeds are very much alive, gaining the strength necessary to push into the light- and thrive. It is good to grow things slowly- and to be grown slowly by a Diving Farmer who is planting seeds in the field that is your life. There is no dobt about it. You are a farmer. But you are also a field- a glorious, blooming, wild, unruly, and wonderful field. And you are worth every bit of seed planted into you.” -Jennifer Dukes Lee (Growing Slow)

Sweet summertime here we come!

Finally, I’d love to share my spring inspirations that shaped this season for me below.

Thanks for coming along for another season together this year!

XX,

Christina