Life in heavy fogs;
when walking turns to ice cream,
laughter becomes light.
CKS
Sometimes we just have to laugh. Levity and smiles really is good medicine. Sometimes I dream it. I imagine it. Maybe it isn’t physically happening in the moment. Maybe I am actually crying. and that is okay. There is nothing wrong with darkness.
It is not pleasant. It is not OK. It is dark. Difficulty is just that; difficult. Sometimes avoidable and sometimes not.
For a while now I have been dealing with unrelenting physical pain. It sucks. no other words to describe it. Currently I am tired of rearranging medications. My neurologist is great. He had no problem keeping on tryin. He is very supportive and I feel lucky.
But I am tired, so my last appointment I said such. Medication is not the only way I work to manage pain. I use meditation, stretching, acupuncture/Chinese medicine and massage, a variety of tools in my toolbelt. I even found on YouTube an interesting exercise from an art therapist where you have a conversation with pain. I liked it.
So, here I am and of course, one big way I deal with life is through my work. writing and painting. and they are not actually separate to me, they are one in the same.
I struggle to describe it accurately but I really enjoyed participating in the interview and I think it does a pretty good job at talking about how I feel about words and art, so I will link it here: part 1 and 2 if you wish to read them
Paper Cuts and Paper Heals: Connie Karleta Sales
Paper Cuts and Paper Heals: Connie Karleta Sales
Anyway, recently I decided to sit with a phrase from John out of the Bible:
“The Light Shines in the Darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” John 1:5
I believe that the majority of my art has come from the perspective of darkness the light overcame, so i flipped the script and came from the perspective of light the darkness did not overcome.
Light and darkness are both still there. perspective is the change.
I ended up with 2 paintings:
The Color of God Within, and
The Light Darkness cannot Consume
They make me smile. The shores are rocky and they make me smile; like eating ice cream. levity breaking into joy.
This is getting long, so I will stop here for now, and continue next week with part 2 talking about how i see it relating to the shift my work is taking by pure physical form. frenzy of line/mark-making becoming slower, thicker brushstrokes. and feeling where I am in the middle of the shift; flipping the script.
until then,
paint much love, always,
Connie Karleta Sales
a.k.a. This Crooked Little Flower