a painter's affair: The Gift of Farewell (Visuals of 2017)

On the eve of every new year, I paint. Tucked away in my private corner of the world, it is where and how I account for the past twelve months. My painting tools form a rare, but dependable company. Pressing the medium until it crumbles at my fingertips or moving paint across thirty-six inches of substrate has become a coping mechanism for the parts of life that overwhelm.

Prior to the clock striking midnight, I already am in bed with the lights out, staring into a grand, intangible nothingness I call shelter. As sleep meets me, I hear the fireworks in the distance. I imagine explosive displays of neon color filling the night sky and I linger with my thoughts for a moment more.

As 2018 taps my shoulder, there are some things I admit I have not managed to overcome quite yet, but so speaks process. Learning to let go and accept hard truths; understanding the human condition and its fight to hold on to non-truths. We are softened by experiences, made tough by them as well. I do not believe in resolutions, only the inner resolve to be better and kinder to one another, and to ourselves. This is what the whole of 2017 taught me.