Gathering Blue

Under the indigo light of a deepening dusk
near a navy blue ocean’s
subdued and gentle nudge
she walks barefoot on cool sand
dressed in denim and shibori
collecting blue gray seashells

My Journey to Creating this First Piece of the New Year

I struggled to find the inspiration to write and paint my first pieces of the new year. The prose and poetry I was writing seemed without merit. The words were certainly not leading to any visual art. My thoughts were random and scattered. I’d write for several hours each day, put the work aside, come back to it, and start all over again, writing and rewriting. None of the words I put to paper made sufficient sense of any message I was trying to convey. Related themes emerged but would not coalesce into a cohesive piece. I got tired of laboring to say something that maybe wasn’t ready to be said, at least not by me. I needed to find inspiration to fuel my creative spark which was sputtering out. Lucky for me, I only had to go as far as my own home studio to do just that.

Pinned to one of the inspiration boards I’d created in my home studio is this quote credited to Henri Matisse, “Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while working.” My writing as work was not inspiring anything; so I switched gears and instead of writing started attending to my visual art. I reframed and reworked a few older pieces, prepped some canvases, did some drawing, and reorganized my studio, moving my easel and some supplies to different positions in the room. When I started to collate my photos and other papers, I found a few lovely blue pieces I had forgotten about. Blue is a color I am drawn to and I started to feel that shade working its magic. My creative juices warmed and the sputtering spark of my creativity strengthened. I knew I would use one of the blue photos as inspiration for a poem and a painted companion piece; and that is how Gathering Blue came to be.