The Norwegian trip last month was so healing and wonderful in so many ways, but one of the surprising gifts was the effect it had on my artwork. I came back from that light-filled expanse, not wanting to lose the surreal sense of space and grandeur. I thought I’d want to use the time I was away to write, but no words came. I just was present, drinking coffee and eating cheese and homemade bread, listening between languages, taking hikes, and realizing people survive in expanses without many other people, and have for ages. Something jarred me—in a good way. As it was, my brain needed some jarring, so I was open to the change.

Anyway, when I returned, even on the drive home from the airport, to be specific, I decided I’d try my hand at some abstract painting. I started by studying the abstract expressionist, Helen Frankenthaler, who had herself once been hugely inspired by a trip to Nova Scotia. Afterward, she said: “I had the landscape in my arms as I painted it. I had the landscape in my mind and shoulder and wrist.”

Here is my painting of Helen. And following are a few more that I made based somewhat on my Norwegian experience. There was something about clarity of reflections on the fjords that really jostled my soul. I imagined if I painted images and their reflections being somewhat wrong, somewhat off, it would also help me make sense of how my own world had been split in half in so many ways: Vernon’s old self/brain injured self, the me before the trauma/after the trauma, life/death, past/future, even Maki having parents on other sides of the world. There was so much clear dichotomy, so many fractures…but how to pull them back together into one place. I think that’s where I am…I am at the beginning of trying to pull these worlds together again. Also, reflections (and reflecting) can be deceptive—which image is more real? Can’t they both be?

This is the first one I did, or one of the first….It’s actually one painting (14×18″) but I’m not sure which way I meant to stand it up. I also like how it reminds me now of a heart monitor. But that’s not what I was thinking at the time.

Here is the next one (bigger at 24X36″), also based on reflections. There are a few things going on here that I had in mind, and though I think it might look unfinished, I have moved on, so therefore, it is finished.

Here’s another that I worked a while on. I’m calling it “The Midnight Sun.” Don’t know when I’ll get to be inspired again by that surreal light, but for me, I feel that this one managed to capture some of that strange double-dimention-ness. I also like that this was built up on an old board, primed by Vernon years ago, that he intended to use for himself. I have one more of those floating around, but nothing worth showing you on that one yet. (16×20″)

Here is one more…you’d never know that such an amateur-looking piece would actually be layers and layers of paint, pictures started over and over, all based on the landscape, sort of. I’m calling it ” The Moon is Down,” which is actually the name of a song that Maki wrote on his guitar (and, he discovered just this week, the name of a John Steinbeck book that happens to take place in Norway!) I wish I could express in words the things this one means to me. But I can’t, so I paint…and share.

So this is the ongoing gift of the North to me. I’ll continue this story in another post, as I share the next step of my painting journey. But that wouldn’t make sense without this. And that’s how things seem to go. One step leads us to the next. No matter how strange and new.

If you love any one of these paintings enough to buy one, please let me know. This is a way of supporting the family now. But it is a way to stay present in my life, no matter what gets thrown our way. And not just that, a way to throw something back! 🙂