Acrylic and Spray Paint on Wood

9”x12”

Original Painting by Cha Wilde (2022)

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Why I sunsets? ☀️ People paint sunsets all the time. What’s special about mine? I’ve been informed that an art gallery or collector may ask me this question.

Yes, they’re pretty but what is going inside my mind while I paint the sunsets? Why should anyone care or look twice or think deeper?

I escape into sunsets. I commune with humans at sunset. I put down everything else I’m busy with in this life to pause and be with the earth in the moment when we wave goodnight to the sun. Can I stare straight into it for a just a moment and realize it’s a ball of fire sooooo far away and I’m just on a rock. Hello moon, it’s just you and me floating here, revoking around that fire that keeps us alive. It’s really out there…we could travel to it and burn up before reaching it. It’s not a pretty dot painted on the sky. It’s really out there like the sand, the water, mountains, the people over there. Can I drop the stories and feel the reality of space for a moment? The sunset in the end of my day, the day I just loved and lived and worked so hard to glide through. Day after day I’m stuck here on this planet by no choice of my own and the sunset gives me a rhythm that promises we’re going somewhere. We’re going around and around. Everything is circles here. I don’t know why but when I sit with the setting sun I know how. I know how to live. Slowly, mindfully, gratefully, colorfully, rhythmically, consistently, gratefully. Maybe I workshop the sun. As a yogi, I salute the sun over and over. I feel the sun warm my skin and tension melts out of my body. Sun shines in the sky and a smile spreads across my face. I couldn’t paint a millions things and I keep focusing on the sun, the source of my life and joy, my friend in the sky, my celebration of today and my hope for tomorrow. When I paint, I enter a playful flow state, focusing, concentrating my mind on what I believe in, what I’m curious to explore. What is more mesmerizing for me than our sun? The sunrise is beautiful and eager. The sunset though, soothing and grounding. As a child I treasured the sunrise every day. I was at the rise of my life story. As I age, I need more of the sunset; it’s showing me how to let go. ✌🏼