Often, I don't know what a painting will ultimately look like when I begin. Maybe some artists do. They probably plan better than I do (in painting and in life generally). I am usually inspired by an idea or a concept, but I'm not quite sure how the canvas will look in the end. Sometimes I get stuck and the canvas needs to sit for weeks before I finally get some insight or inspiration.
This happened to me recently with two paintings. They were sitting in my art studio for a long time (in one case, for several months) and suddenly in the past few weeks, new ideas clicked and they both came together.
I started one of these paintings motzai Yom Kippur, inspired by musaf of that day. In my mind, the painting was going to be about avodah, but I wasn't sure yet how to convey on canvas what I wanted to express. So it sat in my art studio like a dull, boring sketch for several weeks:
Then, a couple weeks ago, I saw a photo of some plants in a vivid range of colors and I got some ideas about a color palette for the painting, and suddenly it started to take on a new life. Then, I thought the painting was no longer about avodah. Now, it was going to be about light!
The painting needed light! Over the past few weeks, I was feeling like I needed to see light in a time of chaos and confusion...maybe a sliver of what light looked like in days when the world once beheld something more beautiful than anything we can imagine today. But it still needed some finishing touches of deeper colors, brighter highlights and low-hanging clouds and mist—I added those brushstrokes and then I could let it rest:
When I was almost done and the idea of light started to take shape, I stared at the painting and thought, "Why didn't I think of that before?" But paintings evolve, sometimes on their own timetable. This painting needed light, but it had to sit and wait until the inspiration surfaced. In a sense, the painting is still about avodah ... sometimes the avodah of a person is to wait. Sometimes the avodah is to learn how to receive light. And we hope that as we progress in our personal avodah (whatever it may be), we will see and feel more light.
I had the same experience with another painting—this one of ma’arat hamachpela. It kept evolving in stages, but it never really spoke to me and I didn't know exactly what I wanted it to say to the viewer. Before I learned a new insight last week, it went through these prior versions:
First, the rigid and boring version:
Then, the soft and dull version:
It was sitting around like that, soft and dull, for awhile. Then, I heard a beautiful shiur last week by Rabbi Yosef Galimidi about (among other things) Chevron being a point of connection between this world and the next, and the concept of neshamot passing through Chevron on the way to their destination in this world (see the Rabbi's shiurim here). And suddenly, there was inspiration to give life to the painting...to convey a connection between worlds! (See final product below.) Why didn't I get this insight before? I thought. This painting sat collecting dust for months!
The physical world reflects the spiritual world, in small ways and on a bigger scale. The same week that I was asking myself why I couldn't see something seemingly so obvious just to complete a simple painting, I found myself asking the same question about a new, more meaningful way I was beginning to see my life circumstances: "Why didn't I see this before?" I asked one of my teachers. "I could have done things so differently! I could have experienced things so differently for so many years!" I felt guilt and defeat.
"Don't be so hard on yourself," she said. "There is an idea that if you didn't hear this message before, then it was not yet the time for you to receive this insight. Now that you are receiving this message in your life...in a sense, it means that now is exactly when you need to receive it."* I reflected and realized that the person I was a couple years ago was probably not ready (not evolved enough) to hear certain messages and act on them. Sometimes, like a painting, we have to wait, go through stages, evolve, and do our inner work before we can receive something new.
And when that work is challenging and we get in our own way, sometimes we don't see all the possibilities and all the light in front of us. And then, one day, perhaps our Creator says: "Enough. That chapter is over. A new chapter of your life has arrived."
We should all merit to see an end to our collective waiting and the arrival of a new chapter of light.
*Thank you, Rebbetzin Tzipora Harris, for your beautiful insights.
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