Sometimes you just have to fly

I have not painted, except for my little post-it note art series, in over two months. I've had other projects to work on and have had to push aside what I love to do. Today, I felt that if I didn't paint, I was going to die. Put another way, painting enlivens me. So, just a while ago, I picked up my brush, got out my watercolors, grabbed my watercolor journal and sat down. I had no idea what i was going to paint. I wanted to see what would emerge from my imagination. My paint box looks too clean and neat and my brushes hardly knew me from months of disuse.

What came out was the above painting of a brush & bird flying above the jeweled earth.

I wouldn't have died immediately. It would be a slow drying up kind of death leading to this epitaph on my gravestone (though I wish to be cremated): "She died from not painting; her brushes dried up, too." I'd rather see "She died as she lived~joyfully, artfully" or something lively like that.

Earlier, I was thinking about one of my Japanese English students who told me that his father wanted him to be a business man, but that he really wanted to be an artist. I remember him saying, "If I don't do art, I will die." That was a long time ago. His words left a deep impression on me. I hope he made an enlivening choice.