Sea of Life

Phthalo Blue and Zinc White. The scent of freshly opened oil paints with a hint of turpentine to make them behave like a good water color. Or, Ultramarine water color on a white cold pressed sheet. A good artist will choose the best tools for her outcome.

The artist is inspired by The Great Wave by Hokusai, where tiny boats and unafraid Japanese folk ride almost veritcally with the waves. Black outlines cover each and every sea spray of water droplet as if individually drawn with pen but no, The Great Wave is a woodblock. Genius artist. The artist would love to have known him. She feels a connection.

Painting fluidly can have a trance like effect on emotions. It sooths, as if in a Philippine spa. It calms, as if on a raft in perfect weather. It breathes, as a mild breeze blows through golden highlighted hair. The human mind is at ease, blood pressure lowered, and heart rate at a comfortable pace as all stressors of life are brushed away on canvas or paper. The artist doesn't just paint the picture, she is in it.

Using only one blue hue is a challenge. The artist wants to use more colors, but she holds back with a sense of good discipline. Attempts at creating all hues possible is a structured lesson. But then, what about the ship, and how does the artist recreate the light of the sun? How does she decide to not use the compelling Lemon Yellow, Ochre, Burnt Umber, Lamp Black or combinations of red and blue violents? How does she not choose the other tempting shades of blue: Cerulean, Sky Blue, Cobalt, or Aqua like the colors of the sea?

This artist learned about her ancestors who arrived on ships over a hundred years ago. She is linked to these people with an inspiring, uncanny connection. She has visited the countries from where they came, maybe even walked along the same streets. The fish and vegetable markets along the Garonne River quays in Bordeaux, France. The city of Barcelona along the Baleatic Sea where ancient records of the original Catalan people are kept in a cathedral. The view of Mount Fuji, also called Fuji-san, in the window of a fast train from Tokyo. So many ancestors of so many towns with so many stories. But all somehow related to the sea or the rivers or the lakes that hold their many secrets. It is not a wonder why this artist is attracted to water.

We are all parts of a whole. We are all parts of the people that we came from many years ago. We are all fragments of these people. She is a combination of mixed races through many generations and that makes her beautiful not only in an exotic, dark appearance but in spirit, personality, gentleness, and humility. She is a product of these peoples and their cultures and drawn to these countries and towns. And the artist that she is, captures all elements of her heritage, and it brings great satisfaction.

We can't see our ancestors but we can feel them and that should be celebrated. Maybe we are not that far away from the people of our past like the ship in the far distant horizon. Maybe they watch over us and help us along. Maybe they need our forgiveness for something they did wrong in the distant past, setting forth a domino effect of bad happenings. We may never know how much we are just like them, or how much we look like them or what talents we share and pass on to our children and grandchildren and so on. Therefore a celebration of our ancestors is a thing to hold on to like an anchor. Get to know them, for they may hold answers to why we act the way we do, look the way we look, paint, draw, write or play the piano.

I digress. The painting is a picture of life itself. We are in the water waiting for our ship on the horizon. It is so far away and yet so close. Where is it going? Where has it been? It is in the present that we search, think, wonder, plan design, work, play, rest, eat or drink in constant motion like the currents and the fish who swim in harmony with one another. They are a family as we are all family.

Life goes on, and like that ship that travels from sea to sea, country to country, and port to port through waters of calm, rain or storms; white caps, or serene flat reflective mirrors, it is a constant journey. Just like those tiny figures that Hokusai added to his great woodblock, we can't really see them but we know they're there and they live in us in this great sea of life. Sometimes we have to ride those waves, go with the flow, swim with the fish, or just calmly watch the sun rise and set and live each day as best we can till we find our purpose, even if it takes a lifetime to arrive at the port in which we are meant to land.

“From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie.” Hokusai Katsushika