Happily Ever After 

(Can you see the sleeping girl?)

If my life were a fairy tale I’d like to think of myself as a good witch that glows. I’d like to have a bubble. A wand. A nap. And sparkles all around me when I moved. If I could go back to the parts of my life where I was the most asleep - perpetuating and causing the most pain and confusion - I’d like to imagine it as a nicely lit, colorful rest I was taking, much like this picture. 

I just haven’t gotten old and healed enough for that ability just yet.  I have experienced so many stories. Stories that I have then brought forward into my mind and applied to everything in my life. Only to realize that my life experience is far beyond any story I could re-tell or re-live. Some of the very first art I experienced was Keith Haring. I was probably 7.  

I loved the bold pops of color and the way he made those colors and figures dance. The drawings were photographed in run-down, dirty NYC subways in the late 1980s. All I could see was the movement. It was like the subway didn’t exist. I think that is what taught me that art is the ultimate escape. That no matter where I am, it has the power to take me somewhere else. That no matter how asleep I am, it is always available to me to create or experience.

 Art is the most powerful way that I know how to participate in life on this planet. It is addicting how lost I get, but how powerfully the narrative of the painting will pull me back into where it intends for me to go.

This is a portrait of a girl fast asleep amongst the brightest colors - the most dynamic composition of light. Who will she be when she wakes up? What will she make? What will that say? 

If my life were a fairy tale I’d hope it would tell a nice story that is real, except with talking cats and unicorns with bank cards. I don’t think many of us sleep to dream but lately, it’s like we dream to live. In full color, surrounded by glitter. I live in the happily ever after but I have to be careful not to let it put me back to sleep.