A second art

Earlier this year I started messing around with acrylic paints. My late sister was a painter, but I have always said I had no visual talent. I can hardly draw a stick figure.

Still. I like painting because I am such a beginner that when things don’t turn out I feel neither failure nor shame.

With writing, it’s too easy to slip into “I didn’t do good work today and therefore I am a bad writer and possibly a bad person.” (Repeat after me kids: you are not your work.) With paints, I never feel tempted to say “I cannot create a sense of foreground and background and therefore I am unworthy of love.” It’s just practice, and process, and fun.

Maybe I could learn something from painter self?

This was done after a photograph by my friend, the artist Nancy Forde, who gave me kind permission to copy. Check out her work!