Veil Painting -- Going With the Flow

Today I feel moved to start writing about veil painting -- the process; the spirit; the experience of it. But I won't do it all in one sitting, of course. I'll go with the flow, like the paintings themselves, and see where we end up.

First, the space.

For the past several years I've been painting in the office upstairs -- lots of windows and light. But recently, feeling the need to pursue my creativity away from the business of life, I have moved my easel, and writing desk, into our bright, finished basement. Decorated in neutral tones it has everything I need in creature comforts to allow me to create to my heart's content.

The bar has a sink and a counter where I can wash my brushes and mix paints. There's a washroom so I don't have to run all the way upstairs ;-) and a fireplace for when it gets a bit chilly. It's a pleasant setting -- not perfect because it's in the basement -- but it's bright and clean and quiet and with its open and expansive floor plan allows my two collies to wrestle with each other when they feel the urge. With fur flying everywhere and playful growling as they throw each other to the floor I am always made to smile. They always seen to know when I need lightening up, too.

From my writing desk, where I now sit, I can look over to my right and about 12 feet away is an easel with my newest veil painting sitting on it. It is a work in progress, started a couple of weeks ago once I had feel for this new space in which I work.

About 10 feet beyond that is my drafting table upon which sits my most recently completed painting in hues of green. It remains nameless. Every time I look at it it says something different to me. Some paintings finish with an obvious motif. This one is a little more subtle. However I've always had the sense that it relates to horses (no big surprise there!) Today I see a rider on a horse struggling to keep her left elbow bent and to her side so her horse can feel a consistent and sympathetic contact. As this is one of my issues while I riding my own horse, it is not a complete surprise that this image would show up in the painting. And, in fact, it is a pleasant visual reminder that I can carry into the riding ring with me.

If you were to look at this painting however, I doubt you would see this image -- at least I'd be surprised if you did. What each person sees in these beautiful paintings is very personal. You could point out to me something that you see and be adamant it's there but I might never see it, even though I am the artist. Our vision is different. I will post this painting on my website soon. In the meantime, at the top of this blog is an example of another painting. Study it for a moment and let me know what you see. I'll offer my own vision of it in my next time.

Veil paintings are ethereal and full of mystery. That's one of the reasons I love creating them so much. I hope as this blog unveils I will be able to help you gain an appreciation of their beauty and intimacy, and that their mystery will unfold for you in a way that's meaningful and personally satisfying.

Next time we'll begin looking at the process itself -- or not. We'll see how the spirit moves me.

Cheerz!

Dorothy :-)

Dedicated to those loved, and lost

Dearly Beloved
Dedicated to those loved, and lost


Dearly beloved,
How can you have gone?
One minute living your life,
The next ~ no life to live.
And in my life
A gaping, lifeless, dark hole
Where once shone your living light.
Oh, how I miss you ~
Your laughter, your style, your grace.
Such tangible emptiness
A sorrow sore borne.

Alas, dearly beloved,
I must go on,
Minute by minute living my life
In tribute to your laughter, love and dignity.
Gradually filling the darkness again
With the light of
Your beloved memory ~
Your beauty, your smile, your face.
For such intangible comfort
I can scarce hope.
Dearly beloved ~ I miss you.

Copyright Dorothy McDonall

The loss of those near and dear to us through sudden illness or accident is always a shock. I am prompted today to share this poem, written several years ago, in response to the experience of a very dear girlfriend who has lost three family members within the past nine months at approximately three-month intervals. It is very sad to watch this lovely woman suffer so much emotional pain and loss over such a short period of time. She is one of those people who truly doesn't deserve it.

Such loss of those we love can leave a terrible void. I believe it is that sudden emptiness which renders us inconsolable as we attempt to come to terms with it, and wonder how we will ever fill it so that we once again feel complete.

I believe we have only two real choices when life hands us the sour lemon of a loved one's death: we either add sugar and make lemonade by honouring their memory and somehow making good of a sad situation. Or, we suck on its sour juices until our lips pucker and complain about the bitterness that never seems to end.

Knowing my girlfriend she will, once the shock has worn off, choose to make lemonade and I will be there, as much as she needs me, to help.

In the meantime I dedicate this poem to her and those she has loved, and lost.

I love you, Janice ..

Winter's Field

In winter’s barren, snowy field I stand,
My tender heart gripped tightly in his icy hand.
His frosty breath across my naked soul doth blow,
Leaving in its numbing wake a frosted, ruddy glow.

I didn’t mean to stand in winter’s field so bare.
When first I stood it blossomed green and lovely there.
But then, alas, the changing leaves did fall,
And that which I had first observed appeared to be nowhere at all.

So here I stand, in nature’s stone-cold lonely place,
The light of love gone briefly from my care-worn face.
Instead a dormant season now resides ~
Within my chilled heart love’s smouldering fire hides.

But winter’s frosted season too must end,
As spring her warming greeting soon will send.
And so my frozen sojourn too will cease,
And once again love’s warmth in me increase.

Copyright Dorothy McDonall

Commentary

Some years ago I entered a long, cold winter season in my life.

The frost began to descend after the sudden death of my grandmother in 1994. I was 30-something at the time and a very disconnected individual. I thought my life was going places with a good job in public relations. I was a soprano in the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, and was in what I thought to be a stable and revitalized marriage. It was a tidy and controlled life, or so I thought. But I was so wrong.

My life was a lie.

Granny's death was a wake up call that triggered an extended period of introspective hibernation. Indeed, it's been 16 years since I entered winter's field and felt the glacial winds of change hurtle me from the cold hands of unconscious living to the warm embrace of self-awareness.

In the ensuing years my claustrophobic marriage ended; I re-kindled my passion for horses; I worked to release my inner artist and took up the call to express my thoughts through the written word.

It's been a tumultuous journey at times, of course, because that is the very nature of the adventure of true self-learning. But that is what's made it all the more rewarding. As spring finally starts to unfold for me after all these years, I am able to grasp the essence of what it really means to be me. The frozen sojourn is ending and the fire of my creativity, and the love it expresses, is finally, and genuinely, beginning to reveal itself.

Welcome to my spring!