Gifts Of Grief Chapter 10: Maroon And White Painting

Discussion of Chapter 10 of my book Gifts of Grief: Maroon and White Painting. I rediscovered the maroon and white painting and other artwork I'd done over the years. I brought them down from storage in the garage and up from storage in the basement and put them in my house where I could be reminded that I am an artist, as is everyone.

Transcript

Hello, This is Jacob Watson. I am sharing from my book, Gifts of Grief, A Man's Revelations After Sudden Loss. This is Chapter 10, Maroon and White Painting. The symbol I have of a long journey to accept myself as an artist. Happily, I kept the painting. Every time I look at it, The painting says to me, You painted this. A good reminder. I offer you some silent meditation. Time to reflect on these teachings. It was a gift that Christine respected my artwork. She collected large pieces of paper and lots of old house paint. It is a further gift that my two sisters are both artists. One, When she lost her partner, Expressed her grief in the form of a sculpture and eventually gave it to me. Physical form expressing the feeling of grief. There's the figure, Expressed in clay, Lying back in her lamentation. Hands covering her eyes so that her whole body is expressing her grief. It is the great gift of art to give expression and form to the natural emotions. Recently, A friend introduced me as an artist when I was about to give a talk on grief at an assisted living facility. It was the first time that I had been introduced as an artist. I remember back in college when someone wanted to buy my maroon and white painting and I said, No, I want to keep it. And I have kept it all these many years. It was a symbol and is a symbol of my ability as an artist. I remember being at an artist studio in California the day that my class was painting our ordination stalls and the phrase eternal life came to me. I painted it on my stall, Which I wore for my interfaith ordination and for many weddings and funerals and other ceremonies afterwards. I remember painting Enzo circles on my mother's cardboard casket in the after she died in Marion. Back home in Maine, Encouraged by a friend, I brought my art pieces down from the garage and up from the basement and put them in my house and made them visible. I lived with them and they lived with me. Reminders all. Several years after Christine died, I was finally able to express my grief as art. I made big banner paintings, Abstract, About three feet wide and maybe eight feet tall. I made wooden dowels for the top and the bottom so that they would stretch out and hang on a wall. I brought them in from the garage and hung them in my house in the hallway and in my office. In the basement, I found an old black and white photograph I had taken of a black woman in a food market in the Bahamas. In the garage upstairs, I found old black and white photographs, Two that I'd taken in Marion in the wintertime. I brought all of these into the house and hung them up on the walls. Again, Reminders that I am an artist. Christine affirmed that part of me, A continuing gift. Now, Here is some quiet time, Some meditation. I want to offer this time for you to consider yourself as an artist. How are you putting your natural emotions out into the world? Now, It is time to come out of the meditation. Please do so slowly and gently. Come back to the present moment and these teachings. It is a continuing gift from Christine that I see beauty all around me. I relate to the British film, Horse's Mouth, Where Alex Guinness played Gully Jimson, A painter who looked around and saw expansive places for him to paint his paintings, Anywhere he looked, Particularly in public. I find myself doing the same thing and recently was at a community center and found myself looking up at the large brick wall stretching out overhead. That's a perfect place for some paintings. I'm in the process of contacting the owner to see if they're open to that. It's a whole different way of relating to the world for me, To see around me the possibilities of beauty everywhere. This is a gift that infuses my waking hours and my dream life as well. I'm back to recording my dreams using my iPhone, Waking up just enough to put them down and listen to them the next day. Sometimes I think that my dream life is more exciting than my waking life.