Work in Progress

A Work in Progress is Everything in Creation.

The moment I held my baby for the first time I was flooded not with a feeling of discovery and surprise but by the familiar comfort of greeting an old friend. I knew her. I puzzled at the origin of that knowing. If not at birth, when did I meet her? When did our story begin? When did she begin? Was it that first quickening, a flutter in my womb? At conception? Or even before that, when my husband and I first dreamed of starting a family… Perhaps she was written in my destiny, my DNA, in my stardust? Where does creation begin?

I was with my father when he died. He had a dramatic hospital death; wild eyed last gasps, flat line, alarms, running doctors, and then a hushed emptying of the room. No sounds except the silence of death. Except as I lay draped over him, head rested on his belly to grieve, I heard the rumblings of his body slowly winding down. I felt the involuntary twitches of muscles firing. His warmth slowly evaporating, his color change. He kept happening…

It takes very little imagination to leap past beginning and end; from the ingredients in a prenatal vitamin to worms in a grave… from ashes to ashes, dust to dust...

So I’ve become one of those people who annoyingly leave thoughts trailing with ellipses. The question mark begs an answer, the ellipsis begs musing. It leaves space for what comes after… or before. My muse noticed this habit in our text thread and commented, “dot dot dot... It’s the end of finality.”

… Notes on a page tapping out the rhythm of foot steps, heartbeats, or a constellation of stars. No beginning…no end. Evermore.

Paintings have neither a beginning nor end. The inspiration has inspiration. The first mark on canvas is not the beginning nor is the imperfect state when the painter decides it is “done” the end. It has a life in the audience and a life after the audience. If it is lucky it may have a day propped up on view in a gallery or perhaps a yard sale. Or one day it may shine brightest when it is tossed on a bonfire.

My studio is full of literal dust: pigments, grounds, binders, and the “myriad things.” The state of the dust on any given day is the now, micro slices of eternity. It is all we ever get and it is enough. My drafts, my fumblings, my mistakes, and even my small strokes of genius are enough for today. As an artist my job is spinning dust through time. Creation. Work in progress…