Currently, I am working on a watercolor to go with a letter that I wrote a while ago but have not posted. I wanted a particular image to go with the message of the letter, so I decided to create my own and use my spiffy new paints, brushes and this amazing iridescent medium I found. So awesome! But it’s going to be awhile before the post is complete, because watercolor takes an extraordinary amount of patience, wonder, a commitment to freedom, to surrendering to the elements at hand, and a true love of space and time colliding in unexpected ways…it can’t be forced, bullied, or pushed. It just sort of has to become what it is in its own way. All I can do is guide it as safe as I am able, and honor its unfolding…
As synchronicity would have it, this watercolor also goes beautifully with a new choreographic work I am dancing in by Scott Putman, the Artistic Director of Amaranth Contemporary Dance. This work is touring to Denver in a little less than a month and I am honored and excited to perform…something I didn’t think I would do again, but opportunity came knocking and I answered! There have been so many changes in my life these last six months, and there is something both nourishing, and centering about going back to my roots, being back in the studio with people I adore, rehearsing phrases and timing, trying to get my body to work…which it does very differently now after the seizure. My head has to be completely quiet, and I have to fully concentrate in order to do anything with any amount of coordination. Movements that I wouldn’t have thought twice about, I now have to be fully present to accomplish. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing – it’s just a completely different experience from what it used to be like. In an odd way it feels better, more connected not less, atoning, humbling, yet affirming too. A time to release past pressures, and just dance again, and enjoy not having the weight of the world on my shoulders, because I can’t allow that pressure in, or I would fall over – ha! Life is such a joker! While in Denver with Amaranth, I will also choreograph a new work for the beautiful dancers at Denver School for the Arts. I am so blessed, grateful, and excited for theses experiences! True love of space and time colliding in unexpected ways indeed.
Now these similar ideas (the one for his dance, and the one for my watercolor/post) were birthed in different ways but they are deeply complimentary. So without further adieu, here is progress report #1 for my as yet untitled watercolor. This is the third layer of color of about fifty…the blue has a long way to go – it needs much, much, much more depth, and I haven’t even begun the skirt (my favorite part, besides the fish) or the flowers (another favorite part). But the movement of the work is slowly emerging, and that is what I had hoped to accomplish at this point. So much more to do! I’ve also included a close up of the fish who will be doused in iridescence when the time comes.
