[envira-gallery id=”1102″]
Turning Toward the Symbolic
2007-2008
After working intently for one year, teaching myself to paint and pushing myself to produce a work each week, I developed a serious injury—a frozen shoulder. (I was so focused, I ignored the shoulder pain that flared at the end of each day.) I had to stop painting, and this hurt me emotionally as much as the pain did physically.
Six months of physical therapy, and then fear of renewing the injury kept me from painting for a year and a half. Then, at the encouragement of a friend, I entered a juried show with the theme ‘circles.’ How hard could it be to produce one painting, I thought?
Within minutes, my body memory began re-living the intense discomfort in my upper back and arm. In desperation, I passed the paint brush to my left hand. With my coordination reduced, I had to keep the forms simple, and use color and brush strokes to add interest. The resulting painting, Encircling Moon, pleased me so much that I knew I would continue to explore these techniques. I now paint with two hands, passing the brush back and forth, and sometimes using both hands at the same time.