the sun still sets for us
The painting that took me half of 2022.
This painting totally paralyzed me this year… I typically can work pretty fast, but I started this painting in May and didn’t get it done until end of November. It wasn’t that it took me actually a long time to paint, but I just couldn’t make progress on it. I would stare at it for weeks, and it would stare back, all three of me looking at one another. I would work on it for a day, hate everything I did, and have to cover it up the next time I worked on it. I couldn’t move forward in this painting for so long, I kept getting stuck in something. The process of painting “The Sun Still Sets For Us” involved me confronting multiple versions of myself, the subject matter of this painting reflects the process of making it.
I started this painting in May on a whim, unaware of the task ahead. I thought this would be casual project and not something that totally swallowed me whole. I had a weird year, it was my first year post-graduation, my first year not in school, I felt totally alone with no direction. Everyone knows school isn’t necessarily designed to prepare you for what’s to come, it just gives you the tools to move forward, in the right circumstances. I hit a lot of amazing milestones in 2022, but I also had a pretty low year, which I wasn’t really expecting. I’ve had years with more “hardships” on paper, but this year simple affected me more. Everything seemed so massive all of a sudden, like I was pushed between mountains that were growing taller and finally, looming over me all this time. It’s like all the feelings I avoided as a student came to the surface when I felt totally alone, self-employed (working alone), and with no short-term projects to distract me. I lacked community and direction this year, and realized I had to rebuild that for myself, which meant I had to look backwards… and I had to look in a mirror.
I had to finally deal with my life up until this point and decide what the rest of it would maybe look like, which can feel daunting. Throughout this time of deciding on my life, trying to make something work by connecting the dots with my dreams, I found myself unsure and insecure...? I found my current, older self looking back to my younger, more wild, unknowing self. And that is when this painting was born.
“The Sun Still Sets For Us”, Acrylic Paint, 40” x 40”, 2022
I knew the intention of the painting before I started, so the title came before the actual painting, “The Sun Still Sets For Us”. I knew that a Lake Lanier sunset was going to be the backdrop to this story, it represents home and inevitability, which I craved this year. Regardless, and maybe even in spite of what’s happening in the world around us, the sun still sets to color the sky with its own account for the day thus far. It sets For. Us. Us, as in me, each of us, the girl I was and the woman I’m becoming, For, as in, although it doesn’t feel like it sometimes - in our favor. This painting is just as much about grappling with who I am, as it is trusting who I will be, and reflecting on who I was. This painting is about the ache of transitions.
The version of me on the right is admiring the younger, potentially more ‘free’ version of who I was in 2018. Back then, I blindly trusted in how life was playing out for me. I was pretty fearless and didn’t realize it at the time.
I rest my hand knowingly on her younger shoulder, confirming that it will be okay just like she believed. Things have worked themselves out better than I could have even imagined, but that doesn’t mean my older self is left fearless and certain, quite the opposite really.
Both portraits of me morph into landscapes I grew more familiar with over the years. We are two mountains whose valleys cross paths in the center, we cross as the sky wreaks beautiful turmoil between us. As our landmasses connect at the foothills, the sky defines us as individuals. Two mountains, one blooming wildflowers as a wild woman, her long, emerald curls integrating with the flourishing blossoms. Her face stern and strong, her hands protective and shy at her center. The other mountain, the older version of me, solid and vast, acknowledging the wild flower basin by gripping a poppy in my clenched fist. Recognizing the past and taking pieces of her with me. Alas, instead of a patch of flowers, I am many wildflower fields turned into evergreens, grown into forests, turned into a solid mountain. I encompass not just one wildflower meadow, but all of them. Although, the wildflower field to the left doesn’t recognize me yet, her eyes set on the future and looking forward, I often salute her and look to her when I need to grow more flowers.
The bull elk at the base of us battle, but not really. The zealous elk on the left is leaping and wasting all of its force against the indisputable elk on the right. The right elk stands firm to protect what it’s built, for both of them. They both have to share the forests after all and there is enough mountain for both herds.
There is room for who I was as I become who I hope to be.
