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Heather Pond Art

Our Beach 36x36

Our Beach 36x36

Regular price $1,030.00 USD
Regular price Sale price $1,030.00 USD
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36x36 acrylic/ canvas/ gold leaf/ glitter/ art resin coated. Ready to hang. 

 

When I was little we went to Indiana, to West Beach - one day a year during the summer. I remember hiding in the dunes, crying when it was time to leave, knowing I wouldn’t see water and sand that stretched like that for another whole year. Even as a little girl, it was like I needed that expansive balance of water meeting land. Looking out over it all from the top of a dune I would climb, it seemed to tell me that anything was possible. 

35 years later the Pacific Ocean tide was the lowest I had ever seen and for once, I wore the correct amount of layers of clothing to stay warm. The way the sun shines here almost every day makes me think I’ll be warm enough in front of the water. I have yet to learn my lesson. It’s a joke we have, my husband Kevin and I, that he dresses for the both of us. The temperature on the water is 5 degrees less once you get down to the beach, and the wind is about three times stronger. This never seems to stick with me. 

Today, all of the shells are so different from what I normally see. They seem to be ancient, and covered in other shells. Every single one of them is cracked in half or missing large fragments. As if they had finally had enough of the power of the ocean. I don’t take things that are in nature. Imagine getting to live in the ocean and having to go live on a dusty shelf instead because someone thought you’d look nice there, as a possession. Depressing. At one point during our walk, my husband finds a fully intact, still alive purple and white clam, about the size of my face. Carefully he walks it another twenty yards out into the ocean and gently sets it back down in the water. I watch him being kind in the sun. 

I told him the story a long time ago about how when I was a little girl I found a clam on the beach and put it in a mayonnaise jar so I could bring it home as a pet, and the clam slowly died. I’m grateful he remembers but doesn’t need to remind me, about my karmic debt to any clam I find. 

Lately, we are on a wild ride together, Kev and I. We sit on our beach every Sunday, figuring out how to live creative lives where we don’t have to spend most of our time in a toxic employment situation. “The machine” we call it. Where we spend most of our time and energy fitting into some kind of structure that someone else created, and then use all of the money we made as a result of that self-absence to spark more self-absence through blind consuming and spending. Every day feels like jumping off of a cliff if I’m being honest. Freedom takes courage, and the vast space of freedom leaves endless room for fear to creep in. Nobody ever talks about that part. Sometimes the most important thing I can do is to intentionally unallow fear of the future to take over so that I can take the next tiny, manageable baby step. 

There are days when it’s laughable, the level of talent and awareness we both have. Of course, we will make it. Of course, my book will get published and be a smash and propel my art career for the rest of my life. Of course, Kevin will be a profound healer, teaching meditation all over the world using his voice. Of course, we will have a house on the central coast, with a hot room and a community of trusted friends from all over the world and locally who take class with us on our farm. Of course, we will have a tiny little crystal store/ art gallery where people can buy my paintings. Of course. “Stop worrying about it, just do the work. Worrying takes away from the capacity to do the work.” 

Every week we sit on our beach to talk about our dreams instead of our fears. Sometimes we laugh at the complete impossibility of us even surviving our lives, let alone meeting, let alone living in San Diego together, happily married, by the ocean. 

Anything is still possible, only I guess the water got bigger from when I was a little girl. The water got bigger and so did my spirit, and our life together. The light gets brighter every moment we choose to dream over fear. 

This painting is a portrait of that peace, that power, and that perfect alignment. What if everything you ever wanted already existed vividly and extra brightly all around you, you just didn’t have the vision to see it yet?



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