The word for April is SURRENDER.
After a discussion about the creative process, my friend, Meghan Arias and I decided to embrace a bit of structure in the form of a monthly prompt. It’s pretty simple. We choose a word; we respond. {You are welcome to join us by linking to your response in the comment section.}
I’ve been contemplating the idea of SURRENDER for weeks now. I looked at dictionary definitions and I wrote words.
Sur-ren-der [suh-ren-der] to give oneself up, as into the power of another; submit or yield. {In case you were wondering.}
At first, the main image in my mind’s eye was a white flag. I imagined climbing out of a foxhole and walking across a field with my hands up. But I never could decide who the “enemy” was and what I was giving up. Besides, that image is dripping with negative connotation and wasn’t really a match for the excitement I felt in taking up this collaboration. Eventually, after much journaling and thinking out in the garden, I landed on the image of a flowing stream. This is what I painted.
I realized that for me, getting in the flow of a current is a more accurate picture. The surrender that was on my heart, was not a losing-a-battle surrender, but a yielding. An acceptance of where and who I am. I wanted to capture the sensation of flowing water and the movement of thought that we face, as we make decisions and move through life.
I love that some of the close up shots look like waterfalls.
And others capture the organic quality of movement and flow.
Somewhere in my musings, I realized that for me, TRUST and SURRENDER are intimately connected. I find it extremely difficult to surrender to a situation where I don’t trust. {Either the people or the circumstance} As I began to paint from the preliminary Sharpie marker sketch in my journal, I decided that the painting needed a boat. Not a big boat or even something with a paddle, but a paper boat. One being swept away by the current. Not a terrifying, out-of-control, sweeping away, but a choice-to-be-in-the-flow-of-life. Like a child lovingly releasing a favorite paper boat.
The initial under-painting was dark. Too dark. Probably born out of my searching {and the difference between acrylic and marker} But silver paint, like reflections on the water, lightened things up and gave the cohesiveness that I was looking for. The silver, like SURRENDER, unified the swirling thoughts on the bank and the moving water with the little paper boat called Trust.
“You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.”
Anton Chekov
EDIT: Yay! Meghan just posted her response. It’s a different take. A lovely, heartfelt different take.
