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The story and process behind my latest painting. $$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$
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I’m grateful to share the process and story behind this next piece in the Can I Hear Me Now? Series, titled “Slow Water Breaks Mountains”. Thank you for being part of this process with me. It’s a joy to share my story with you!
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SLOW WATER BREAKS MOUNTAINS
36x36, Acrylic and Resin on Canvas
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She tried to translate to child ears the meaning behind her favorite saying. To find a way to convey the adage she lived by. The saying taught to her as a child by her Croatian elders. Patience, she told me. It means to be patient, to wait; to keep working but to trust it’s going to work out.
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An heirloom tablecloth handmade by my Great-Grandmother, one of the few belongings my Mom packed with her when she moved from Croatia, as a 20-year old woman, to the United States. |
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In practice, she’d readily admit, it was hard to come by. I watched as her patience waned when it came to the minor things. But always, as if reserved and stored for winter as she’d practiced on her childhood farm, there it appeared. Alive and ready to thrive for the major things, as she’d patiently watch the universe grow, to wow yet again.
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The tablecloth served as the starting point for what would eventually form the delicate but mighty peaks of the mountain. |
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It became a game, to observe the course it would take, never the same as her wish, but the result somehow better. Every time met by a major roadblock, threatening to shake her belief in the possible, she adjusted the path but never the wish. The roadblock consistently delivering greater beauty, a grander prize.
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I chose a scarf for the sky, to commemorate my Mom’s and my shared love of scarves, but also to evoke a seen sense of the wind symbolizing help, support and guidance from nature and the universe, ever present to assist us in our true desires. |
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Tiha Voda she would whisper to my adult ears, knowing finally I would understand. Tiha Voda Brege Dere she uttered in her beautiful accent - Slow Water Breaks Mountains.
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The best things, she reminds me, take time and patience but also hard work and deliberate attention. |
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She says it calmly and with certainty when I drop my calamities at her feet. She gently taps my arm as she hums it when I air my grievances. When I hold minimal patience, she trusts in infinite magic. You have to work, you can’t give up, you don’t half ass your dreams, Mom reminds, but also you wait, you let go, you trust.
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Every piece in this series gave me the nudge to explore new processes I was previously very intimated by. Here, I pour resin - an epoxy sealant creating high shine - for the first time ever. |
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We climb the mountain while also awaiting the water. Movement, slowly. Progress, surely. Tiha Voda.
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Reflecting light, patience and trust, in her new home! |
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SLOW WATER BREAKS MOUNTAINS
36x36, Acrylic and Resin on Canvas
[sold]
See more from the new series, “Can I Hear Me Now?”
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