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| Courage, Final version_2014, 6 ft x 4 ft, oil stick, ink, acrylic, charcoal and gauze |
Dearest Readers,
I’m thinking about courage today, walking through the woods musing on the possible definitions–trying
to find words that explain my winged representation in the painting above. Courage
is one of my three large works on human goodness currently on view through
November at the Gilmore Gallery in the Peacham Vermont library. Several viewers
at the show’s opening reception asked for reasons why I chose the imagery of
wings. I stumbled through my answers.
Wikipedia says, "Courage (also called bravery or valor) is the choice and willingness to confront agony,
pain, danger, uncertainty or intimidation." A romantic painting entitled “Godspeed!”, by
Edmund Leighton (1852-1922) accompanied their definition.
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| Godspeed-Edmund Leighton |
Courage for me is personal
and entwined with the natural world. It is a pair of wings to wear in difficult
times. It is a flying machine for facing death, inspired by birds and branches
that reach for the sky. But this is only part of it.
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| Helping-Hand-Wings for Hazel Who Was Afraid of Death-21 in x 16in, ink and pastel on paper, 2003 |
After my mother died in
1997, I drew her a pair of imaginative wings made out of “helping hand” gloves,
with velcro-fastened shoulder straps and headlights to smooth her transition
from this life and beyond. I saw the fear in her eyes when the priest arrived
to administer the last rights. I realized that I too wanted assistance at the
end.
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| Cecelia at Hambidge Center with early Courage wings-Dec. 2009 |
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| Wings at Hambidge Center with shoulder straps and white "feathers"-Dec. 2009 |
In December 2009 during
a month-long artist residency at the Hambidge Center for Arts and Sciences in
the North Georgia mountains, I began my painting that I now call “Courage”. It
was a long time coming. I found two branches on the forest floor and mimicked
their wing-like curves in ink, acrylic and charcoal. I added eyes to see in the
dark and strips of painted gauze as feathers that I later changed to pure
white. I sewed my own pair of silk covered shoulder straps that fit my body
perfectly. I could “wear” my courage on the wall.
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| Courage-mid-point 2010 |
Later the sky in the center changed from cheerful blue to a deep and cosmic blue-green blended by hand from
oil-sticks. Planets and stars dotted the universe beyond. I slashed two angled gashes in rough red paint and created a high color focal point in the middle.
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| Left to Right_Sally_Cecelia_Ruth in Hambidge mirror_2009 |
I sent the painting a
year later as a gift to an Atlanta friend, Sally Wylde in hospice in Massachusetts
with breast cancer. Sally and Ruth Schowalter, friends from Decatur GA in 2009
visited me during my stay at Hambidge when the painting took shape and Sally
was going through chemo and radiation. We took a selfie in my Hambidge cottage
bathroom mirror. Sally is left, Ruth is right. I’m the somber one in the
middle. After Sally’s death in 2010, her husband Btitt Dean gave the wings back
to me. I kept it rolled up.
In 2013 I found the
courage to unfurl it on my studio wall. I ripped off one foot of “superfluous” painting on either end. This
was an act of courage to potentially destroy it, but now I needed to make it
less personal and more universal.
I removed the “cutesy”
straps at once, and in 2014 I painted over the all-seeing eyes that felt like they were
judging. There. Done!
So, what is courage?
For me it is stepping out of a
comfortable space and taking the risk to move forward into the unknown,
trusting in whatever the outcome brings. It is not the absence of fear. It is
releasing hold of safety, and free-falling into what must be done. It is
accepting help and wearing the wings.
