A Day in the Trench

Today was a rocky day in the studio.  I have been having a great time setting up and painting on my own.  I have had to face the time and the fear of messing up a painting in progress, but each day has been a delight of delving into the work.  Today...today, was a test of my strength and character.

I was not in a good frame of mind to paint today, so I had a choice, I could do nothing or I could face the demons and work.  I spent a great deal of time looking and a bit of time using a brush, but I worked.  For a while, I felt that all I had accomplished was to lose the decent qualities of what I had on the canvas a already, but I did not quit.

Sometimes in life we must destroy in order to build.  Today I was the forest fire, in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, which allows the trees' seeds to burst out of their cones; without the devastating heat of the fire, new growth cannot occur.

Today was trying and painful, but there is a future.  I was tenacious and must continue so to be.

Tonight, I sit with a purring cat and a soft coated hunting dog.  Tomorrow I retrieve a birdhouse from a show (yes, a birdhouse)  and head back to the painting.  We will work it out together, that canvas and I, or I shall wrestle it to the ground like Jacob wrestling the angel.

To OZ?  To OZ!