Can’t Get Rid of Me

“Over Every Dark Thing” 22×28, oil on canvas $350.00 [creativ_button url=”http://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/denise-hopkins/over-every-dark-thing/412596″ icon=”” label=”Buy Now” colour=”blue” colour_custom=”” size=”medium” edge=”straight” target=”_self”]

I’ve been working on this one for days now (an eternity for me who likes to crank em out). It started as an abstract. It very very nearly stayed that way. But there was this desire. This nagging thought: As much as I’m loving abstracts, I still love birds. And why not? When you paint every day, there is always tomorrow for the thing you opted not to do today.

The title is taken from a Mary Oliver poem that I’ve referenced before during my second daily painting challenge. I love the poem more with each rereading.

In other news, I’m starting a website for artists who want to make art but have trouble getting started. It will include weekly “assignments” to push a long anyone who needs a little nudging. I was thinking mostly of my former art students, many of whom want to make art but just can’t seem to get into the practice once they are no longer required to. More details coming soon!

Egrets

Where the path closed
down and over,
through the scumbled leaves,
fallen branches,
through the knotted catbrier,
I kept going. Finally
I could not
save my arms
from thorns; soon
the mosquitoes
smelled me, hot
and wounded, and came
wheeling and whining.
And that’s how I came
to the edge of the pond:
black and empty
except for a spindle
of bleached reeds
at the far shore
which, as I looked,
wrinkled suddenly
into three egrets – – –
a shower
of white fire!
Even half-asleep they had
such faith in the world
that had made them – – –
tilting through the water,
unruffled, sure,
by the laws
of their faith not logic,
they opened their wings
softly and stepped
over every dark thing.

— Mary Oliver