Some More Painting

Saw this one in a dream.

Self Portrait

Weird little me.

Is It Like Riding a Bicycle?

I picked up my oil paints after a couple of years without them. I hope I remember how to do this. Testing on some flowers.

Pursue some path, however narrow or crooked, in which you can walk in love and reverence.
—Thoreau

Selkie women are the women you don’t understand. They are the women who know that they belong to another tribe, in another element. And so they seem as though they belong in yours - and they don’t. They are the women who seem to be listening to other voices, or music you can’t hear, or the call of distant bells. There is a faraway look in their eyes. Selkie women are the ones who look as though they have come out of the fairytales, because they did. The ones who look at the sea longingly, who look at the sky as their home. They do not fear death. They only fear imprisonment. Selkie women are the ones you can’t keep. It is a very bad idea to hide their sealskin. They will always find them again. Selkie women are the ones who create things, but look as though they came from another world. People fall in love with selkie women because they see them as conduits to something richer, stranger, more authentic. This is dangerous; wherever they came from, selkie women can’t get you there. You have to get there on your own.
—Theodora Goss

Sui Generis

sui generis
Latin, of its own kind

People often say of a creative work that moves them in some way: "It speaks to me."

I've always been a fan of J.W. Waterhouse's work but could not quite articulate what I loved so deeply about it. Why do I love this so much, I always asked myself, Why do these paintings seem to be—through their strokes of light and leaves and mysterious girls—whispering for me to Remember?" It's an odd sensation, comforting and unnerving. 

For years I've had a book of his paintings that I hold most dear, an attachment that made me always keep it close. Each page with a painting is a venture into another world lasting as long as I gaze upon it. My thoughts take the form of jumbled poems as my mind lets my spirit try to describe what it is seeing.

His work is indeed of its own kind. Synonyms for this phrase include alone, solitary, and unique. These are words that I've always felt closest to, they wrap me like a blanket under a winter's full moon sky. They are my home. Mr. Waterhouse's paintings do the same, the subjects, the colors, the way he painted light, they all wrap around me. Looking into their scenes, I feel they will show me, or speak to me perhaps, of whatever it is I have forgotten.

Thisbe, John William Waterhouse
Also known as 'The Listener'