Turning a Corner

That's an interesting phrase, "Turning a corner." Because corners are angular, not round. And you have to go around them in a squarish fashion. And turning denotes a circular function. Maybe it comes from furniture making, where you would turn a square piece of wood on a lathe to make it round. But that's not why I'm writing today. Today I want to tell you the story of a painting which was being stubborn, because I would not allow it to be what it wanted. The painting above, "High Rock Lake," was made from a recent memory of a trip to North Carolina. My girlfriend's sister lives on this lake with her husband. This is the view that we had as we sat in the summer heat drinking cool drinks and watching the dozens of hummingbirds that would come to their three feeders.

As I painted this months later, I naively and hopefully thought that Jan's sister would buy it when it was finished. I mentioned it to her and she gave it some thought. But there was something about this tranquil scene that I just couldn't capture - my memory was of sunlight on olive green water interrupted by the tall, straight poles of trees. Those were all the elements I was working with. It seemed that it should've been easy. But night after night I changed this and that and still the painting just was not working. Then Lisa, the sister, emailed me to say she was just not interested. That very night I felt freed up to make, not HER painting, but mine. I had been trying to see through someone else's eyes, and alas, I could not. I was trying to please her instead of pleasing myself. As soon as I realized what I had been doing, I painted out all the sacred cows that I had been unable to touch. I added trees where there were no trees, I changed the kinds of trees and covered up most of the sky I had fought so hard to preserve. I put in a great blue heron, an osprey, and even a snowy egret that is just a spec on the opposite shore. I painted new light on the water, going right over the trees, which I then wiped clean with a rag.

In short, I took my painting back. Not selling it was the best thing that could've happened. It helped me turn the corner.