Morning Without End
Morning Without End
Painting my home is a challenge. As that is mostly what I do paint, painting is a terrible challenge. Painting is hard. It becomes particularly difficult when I try to bring intangible aspects to an effort. It is hard enough to keep all the spinning plates balanced and spinning
– perspective, value, shape, placement, color –
but add in memories partially faded and present emotions and circumstances,
and the challenge is too much for me. I still try, though. The painting offered here is part realism and part – I don’t know. The view is morning looking south from our home over my aunt and uncle’s property with a full but fading moon barely visible in the upper right. I have seen it my entire life. How do you paint something like that? I’m sure I failed. I know I didn’t meet my expectations, but after they passed away, a great painting felt less important than a statement of calm and persistence.
See, they were both believers in the Resurrection. They knew the hope that everyone could get lost, dragged down, muddied – and still be found, picked up, and cleaned. They knew forgiveness, the good kind of sorrow, encouragement, and simplicity.
He owned a general store. The cool kind where men would sit around and talk, where sandwiches were thick, the floors and counters were smooth from decades of use, where tires were changed, kerosene was pumped in the back, feed bags were piled up, boxes of fruits lined the way in season, and if you didn’t have money you could still walk out with goods.
She held a variety of jobs. I could name them, but what I love (present tense) about her is her introspection. She would speak with me about inner things. Not for show, but a real exchange of emotions and ideas. She mingled deep things and common sense. She was the best kind of family. Oh, and they raised two beautiful daughters that have the best kids. Lessons on lessons.
How do you paint that? I can’t, but every morning I pull aside the south-facing curtains I’m reminded of them, past and present, and of a future where Mourning ends once, and Morning comes without end. This is the beginning.