Finding Heart

Winter walking.

Ready to go. Happy painter with her blank canvas.

           "Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.” -Voltaire

      Some things about February are worthy of true love.
    Between the 1st and 28th of February, we gain about an hour and 15 minutes of daily sunlight- something we can all love. In addition, the sun is moving higher and higher in the sky- about 15 degrees higher here in Madison, WI, USA. I love feeling the light grow more intense, don't you? 
     Alternately, the clear, crisp night sky is something to love in February. Toward the end of the month, we'll be able to view, without a telescope, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn at various times during the night.  
    Out in the woods, owls are mating and nesting while squirrels are raising their first litter of the year. Yep. The season of reproductive love has begun. Even migratory birds are beginning to make their way to northern breeding grounds. I saw my first robin just yesterday. It looked too tired and surprised by the snow and cold to be thinking about love. 
  Valentine's Day brings thoughts of love to our species. I'm given to the idea that Valentine's Day is more about love in the larger sense, rather than the guilt-love fed to us by sellers of chocolate and diamonds. Of course I love my spouse, friends and family. But I'm not stopping there.
     I love the excitement of standing before a big blank canvas. Woo-hooo! 
   I love the process that accompanies abstraction, as opposed to more realistic work, because it most rouses my courage as a painter, and challenges your openness as a viewer. ​
    I love what I do in the studio and while walking in wild places because it keeps me directed toward the sublime unknowable- the place of my heart. My artistic process is a progression of making adjustments and exploring the edges rather than capturing any sort of ideal. I hope you love it. It won't break my heart if you don't.  
    Enough about me. How do you find heart? Where do you find love? Things to ponder this sparkly, chocolatey, red, pink, and love-ly February 14th.

                                                         Happy Valentine's Day!

Seeing Time 36 (Finding Heart) 32"x 44" ©2018 Michelle Louis