Sometimes I paint purely because it improves my mood. Simply sitting down, taking up my brush, looking around, settingling on a subject and getting to work washes my body with contentment. I had a frantic morning on Tuesday. Thoughts of 'I NEED to get this, this, this, this and this done so I can finally begin the things that really need my attention.' By 8am I knew what I really NEEDED was to paint, even though I had promised a friend I would be in her garden sweeping up pine needles and planting an Aster. So, in my gardening grub I made a concentrated, simple painting of me in my jeans prior to leaving for her house.
Well to make a long story short, my panicked self didnt settle post painting. Rushing to her house and getting the job DONE lead me to slipping, tumbling, and ripping open the small of my back on some chickenwire. My day was officially shot, but I was officially awoken to how irrelevant all of my 'priorities' were. After several hours in the ER I was stitched together and I am going to have the first ever insurance covered tramp stamp.
I titled this small painting done before my epic fail 'prior to the fall' so I remember making this the day I had my first experience with stitches. I love that this came before the event, that the outcome of the day was so different from what I assumed it might be. The painting is not monumental, the moment is not massively significant in the scheme of things, but worth noting in my memory bank. This is the kind of story my friend Martin would enjoy, one I was pleased to have experienced and lived through only so I could think of him reading this and chuckling to himself.