The Flowers Grow, or A Little Rain... Time... Passes

The Flowers Grow, or A Little Rain... Time... Passes

84/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 8/23/09

Golden Fluid Acrylic on Paper, moleskine, 5x8"

Life is a challenge.

The point of living is not to avoid pain or hardship, it is to experience them, as well as joy and ease, and to come out the other side with something new, something good, something that enables you, you crazy human, to be stronger, to survive, to grow into the next phase that you have coming to you.

I actually see a lot of avoidance of pain in American society. We think more money is better because it makes our lives "easier." We think upset and sadness should be taken away with drugs. We don't want to try to do things that are too difficult, because it feels bad to us when we fail. We are afraid of fear and afraid of pain and afraid of struggle.

But, if you look at nature, struggle is intrinsic to... well... nature.

A baby bird struggles to break free of his shell.

A lion struggles to bring down that wildebeast.

A dung beetle struggles to roll that big piece of shit up that steep hill. Pardon my French.

Humankind did not get where it is by lounging on it's perfect butt beside a terraformed pool in Palm Beach.

Ju know what I'm saying?

So what am I saying and why am I saying it attached to this painting?

Well, A glimpse of a botanical print online gave me the leggy, weedy shape and lemon-greeny color, but then I took off with my hatchmarks and patterning and as I went along, the only thing I could think of was rain drops. Rain drops that never ended, raindrops that took away Summer and made you have to sit inside for months on end, raindrops that caused floods and the walls to grow damp and leaks to start and the roof to threaten cave-in.

And then I thought...

Well, the rain ends. It always does. Even biblically, you know?

The sky clears. The land is fertilized and fed. The flowers grow.

Listen.

The flowers grow.