My New Year Experience

Greetings friends and strangers alike. Oh the crazy times of being 23, trying to first of all find a job in this economy, then attempt to make a living, while putting $$ in savings and still having enough to pay off the nightmare that is student loans. My new years resolution for 2018, should I have one, is to promote my art and sell some paintings. The time has come to stop hoarding them and start letting them fly.

There is a certain painting that has made its way back into my life recently, after about four years of separation. It had been living in the bedroom of a man named Kyle, a lively and friendly character I met during my first year of visual art college. I had been giving a painting assignment to combine two different art styles, mine being Orientalism and Pop Art, to create a single painting. It was one of my first 'do-what-I-want' project and I was very excited. I built a four-foot by three-foot canvas frame and stretched my un-primed canvas taut and perfect around the frame. At the same time the project was announced my visual art department hosted their Open House so potential students could come take a look around the studios and see if maybe they'd like to attend. I volunteered as one of the students to be working on their project during said Open House and I got to work on my massive painting. I had a few drawings and designs laid up but nothing really concrete; I work best just going with the flow of the paint.

I was maybe halfway done the background when Kyle and a friend of his approached my area and we started talking about what my plan was. I told him about the giant cherry blossom tree I intend to put in the corner with over-hanging pink blossoms dipping into a spiral pool of water, all done in the style of pop-art. With just my description and my drawings he fell totally in love and offered to purchase the painting when it was completed. As any artist might attest to, commissions are always more pressure than when you do a piece for yourself, because you're constantly asking yourself 'would my patron like this colour?' 'would they like that?' 'is that good enough?' whereas when you make something for yourself, it's an entirely different experience of critiquing.

That being said, I did my best and stuck with my initial idea, and I think I captured what I wanted pretty well. I took a picture, sent it to Kyle, he loved it, we met a couple days later, and he left with his new painting. At the very last minute, in conversation with Kyle, we noted that I hadn't signed the piece (something I'm very bad at doing) and I quickly jotted my name down on the back of the canvas.

I saw Kyle a couple times that year in school, I think he was in some sort of sociology or something like that. But my second year of school started and paintings came and went and he and my cherry blossom drifted to the back of my memory.

Two and a half years later I'm sitting at my desk at the lawyer's office and I get a message on Facebook. It was some lady I didn't have any friends in common with and had never seen her name before. But she was sending me a photo of my cherry blossom painting. She asked me if I was the artist of this painting, the owner of which was named Kyle, her uncle. I told her I was, and she told me that, unfortunately, Kyle had passed away a few months back, and his family found the painting and located me on Facebook from my name on the back of the painting! She said the family didn't know what to do with the painting (and honestly I don't blame them, the thing is pretty massive) and they asked if I wanted it back!

A year and a bit goes by and I don't hear from them again. I sort've figure they got rid of it another way or someone decided to keep it. And then when I was away for Christmas someone got a hold of my roommate at work, because they knew I used to work there too, and after a few phone calls we were in touch again! Yesterday Kyle's brother-in-law came to my new house and delivered to me my cherry blossom painting.

It hadn't occurred to me how emotional I would get after receiving this painting, but this canvas was hanging above Kyle's bed in the last two years of his life on Earth. A time that was probably filled with a lot of pain and sadness, but I can only hope my painting, the colours and liveliness of the lines, gave him some joy and inspiration. I can only presume the kind of emotions that went into that room and into that painting, and here it is with me again. I do intend to sell it again; some paintings I don't think I am meant to have, but that someone else out there needs to have it. Maybe they need the shock
of pink, or the reminder that not everything needs to be straight and perfect, or that there are greater, more beautiful things out there, just keep on trucking and you'll make it.

I have been so moved and inspired by this experience. I cry for Kyle and his family, though I don't know them and only met him a handful of times, he has influenced my life, and through my painting, I'm sure I caused some influence too. I want to do that more. I want my crazy colourful landscapes to bring joy to people, maybe some of the saddest people. I want them to uplift and dazzle, and they can't do that sitting in my hallway. I need them to go home.

Oh boy. More later. Happy New Year :)