I started running again. My knees are cautious, staring up at me with trepidation as I throw my body forward at greater speed. I’m only running because I can run on sand around the entire coast of Gili Air. It’s a small island. The circle loop on the beach took be just over an hour. My cottage is on the sunrise side and my evening run took me around to the sunset, which blew my mind. The entire world turned pink. The tide was out so the wet sand was a mirror for the sky. After months of writing in my novel, I needed a break from writing words. Can you believe it, I didn’t even bring my journal with me on this week long getaway. I only brought paint, headphones for music, and my Kindle. My goal for the Gili trip was to read Peter Pan and The Hobbit. I wanted my mind to be inspired by some high quality old English fantasy. I relaxed at the Flowers and Fire yoga studio and drank peanut butter chocolate banana smoothies at the health food cafe. I wandered until my feet were sore. Then I found the energy to lay out six more canvases and cover them in shades of pink and orange. At first, they looked lovely, soft, gentle and calm but this wasn’t enough for me.
I let the paint dry and I came back the next day with wild visions of blue and gold spray paint at the ready. Creating a calm gradient, a smooth life, is relaxing but it’s not interesting. My husband once said to me, when staring at one my paintings that he didn’t like, that he didn’t know where to look. The paintings that he really enjoyed the most were the ones that demanded his attention to go to a certain spot. There was a hero of the image, a section that captured you and pulled you in. LOOK AT ME! Screams the focus point. It’s the biggest blob, the brightest splash, the only dot in the middle of a plain background. So the six calm pink sunsets, inspired by the beauty that had filled my eyes on my evening run, disappeared behind wild strokes of blue, purple and gold. I didn’t want to make calm paintings, not today anyway. They felt boring. I wanted to make something that pulled something out of me, something I couldn’t find words for. This collection of six paintings is the result of my fiddling around until it just felt right. With wet paint all over my hands, knees and the tiles of the patio, I stood up and nodded, pleased enough to stop.
These paintings will be for sale in my online shop as originals and Gilcee prints.
Studio members get first dibs on new paintings.
Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde