If the end is grace, I hope the means are worth it.

I often think of what I would like to create. Actually, I think of what I’d like to experience - whether I create it or not. These thoughts are future-centered, future-directed. I think of grand gestures toward my wife - a nice vacation or surprise jewelry. In painting, I always envision a large surface with big shapes, elements that call me to a story I heard, or a lesson I learned, or a truth. Big panels, big shapes, weighty, “central-to-human-life” stories - big ideas - truths.

An older painting titled “Life Itself” (a pretty big idea) came into being because of an observation of light moving from branch to branch, trunk to trunk, slowly warming and illuminating each in its own time then moving on — paralleling our existence, our perception of other’s lives, and perhaps renewing hope for the coming days. There were more layers of experience going on inside of me, but the big idea was clear. My panel, however, is small. I envisioned large washes of color with big forms blending, bleeding, and a thousand trees, but could only do so much with my skills, patience, and panel. So, the final product was semi-successful. I could do better artistically, but the idea was at least preserved. I wanted big, but had only small. Below is “Life Itself” as presented for the awesome show at the Salmagundi Club this April.

Seth Tummins oil painting Life Itself shows a dark wood being illuminated by orange and red fading light.

Another quick painting example is an incomplete picture I will title “Jacob’s Rest” when complete. I envision a very large surface with thick paint orchestrating a very simple arrangement of a big idea. When I saw this stone glowing in a field in the Bighorn mountains, I knew there was something there - a lesson, a teaching, an omen - something important. Something so simple needs space, but I can only do so much in my current work setup, so I grabbed a 14x22 (or thereabouts) and set the idea onto the panel. I want it to be the size of a car, but I just can’t do that at this time. The big idea for this one comes from the story of Jacob’s ladder in the Bible - an important vision for all of us.

I mention this mainly to say that I am focused on the future and how all I see in the future are big ideas and the associated questions: how to get to the next step, the next visual story or experience - how to get closer to doing something important to me. Sometimes a big idea has me look uncomfortably back. I can’t change the past, and my past is full of errors and bruises, although I was loved and cared for - still am. But I just don’t like looking back. There is nothing for me there that I can change, and I would change almost everything.

Still, I’m reminded that I can’t live on grand gestures for the future. I can’t go from grand to grand. The sense of failure and disappointment I often feel stems largely from the fact that I want to do more, to be more, to make people proud, to make my life count, to take what is left of me and give my parents and wife a very high return on investment (if you will). But so often I don’t do “more.” I don’t meet expectations, and I know it. I feel it every month. Every time the income is strained, every time my wife has a long week, every time my parents make excuses for me, every time my mother-in-law reminds me that no one is good enough for her daughter - I’m reminded that I don’t do enough. I haven’t been grand enough. Heck, I haven’t even been average enough. Being nice and getting along with people is fine, but something must be done.

Recently, however, while trying once again to look forward and after being defeated by looking for the next big idea, I found myself in a kind of internal stare. In that blank space with no momentum, something from the mountains fluttered down in front of me, a leaf of memory: a mountain road, pines, soft light, deer, and being seen. That memory gently broke my stare - a friend plopping down beside to nudge me back.

Pines, light, and a deer. Accepting this and letting go of a grand idea allowed the stone of my mind to begin to roll forward. The nearly imperceptible act of being content with wonder and grace was like seeing the wind move a sail after a while of drifting, like blinking away the fog.

As it turns out, cultivating common grace is a survival skill.

Survival and advancement isn’t all planting crops and domestication of animals or making fire and hunting. Sometimes survival is looking out at the rain and letting time vanish or allowing a flame to soothe us or lingering on a moment of grace far longer than normal people do or allowing a deer to hold your hand while you reflect on past sadness, hypocrisy and the incessant attempts at forgiveness - known and unknown.

“Grand” isn’t always needed.

Sometimes “plain” is good enough.

And so, I come to this painting.

I started a painting that, to me, has no big idea, no grand gesture, no “meaning.”

Bighorn mountains. I turned off of the pavement to take a dirt road to who knows where, and in looking up (barely) saw a young deer. I was already going slowly, so I gently pushed the brake pedal. It was looking at me, looking back, at me, and back, so I figured he wasn’t alone, and he wasn’t. A male friend came up to see. I could only see his friend’s top half at first. He looks down at me and back to his friend, communicating with him in a natural language that needs no words.

He looked back. That was it.

After a couple of minutes, I let off the brake, careful not to startle them, thankful to see them. Such a common thing, to see deer. So elegant. A common grace.

He stood above me, as the mountain led up and away from the road. An opening in the pines let cool light fall on him from the top down. His neck swept back so gracefully. So beautiful. So common. Just a deer. Just a gesture. Nothing grand.

That was months ago. Sometime last year. I have let go of most of my picture-making thoughts for this painting — I didn’t dwell on arrangement (most important for me), I’m not overly rendering forms, and I’m not obsessing over the surface or tone (though it changed dramatically), or things like color temperature, which - while naturalistic - is only that - naturalistic. I’m not exaggerating reflected light or fussing over a more personal color palette (maybe a little). I’m playing it straight and simple, hoping the easy grace of his form comes through.

It is currently clamped to the easel (a board) waiting for me to know what to do next. It is impossible to photograph. Indoors it looks acceptable, but outdoors it looks horrendous. Glazes. Softness. These are exaggerated by the camera into something like stage makeup when view outdoors, so, while mostly finished, it is the third of three paintings that are all stalled, all motionless again. Such disappointments strangely have apologizing to myself as if I’ve wronged me somehow, as if I have once again let someone down, as if I have failed to do a simple thing.

So, I reflect.

Major changes for them are floating in my mind’s eye like a reflection on a puddle. I’ve tried playing these three paintings straight and simple, hoping that grace comes through.

I present a possibly bad picture to an online audience aware of this painting’s shortcomings, hoping for grace to come through.

I glance into the awkward and messed up past, silently asking for forgiveness, hoping for grace to come through.

I think of what a common painting and a common prayer can do, hoping for grace to come through.

It is titled, “Sentimental.”