Hide and Seek
a contemplation
Sometimes the hardest thing to decide on is what to paint. If I do decide what to paint, the next question comes- how do I want to paint it? When I reflect closely, I think I don’t want to paint; I want to see. What I want to see is hidden, and I want to paint the hidden without letting it be fully revealed. I feel that the full revelation of my theme would be a diminishment of what I am trying to see. It is almost as if painting were a game of hide and seek. Hide and seek is a familiar game to me. It is often played in psychotherapy.
I’ve been painting landscapes. These landscapes provide the bones for painting vastness, space, or a point in space, that is also space. Space itself dances forward to a still point, and then back again to a wash of mood. It’s not really landscape I am painting. Rather it is a feeling form, a wish-fulfillment dream; a way of interacting with the being that I am. And am not.
I’ve become attracted to painting people’s faces; it is as if have a pending appointment with this type of work that I have yet to fulfill. After so many years as a therapist studying the faces of my clients I see so much mystery in the face. Would you come to see a therapist when your session was simultaneously a sitting for a portrait? With my mind’s eye I trace the smile, the jawline, the light in the eyes and wonder-what color halo? You are suffering, I see, and you are also incubating a question. Its fruition might blow you apart. I know this, you don’t, and I want to tell you it will be ok. Your immolation is merely part of the birthing process. I am holding the fetus of your soul in my hands, lovingly, and with the full knowledge of its tender importance. Maybe if I draw you as we speak, the certainty of my lines will reassure you, and you will be more willing to dissolve under the light of insight.
Perhaps, if I were to paint you, I could paint you home. Your home is your essence, grounded in undoing, grounded in your alignment with your deepest truth. But who would sit for such a portrait knowingly? We must be subtle, we therapists; we don’t want to scare you away from the splendor of your self-discoveries. Take them in little sips, the dawn is right over your shoulder, and I can assure you, if you are honest and still, you will find home.
Absolutely stunning!