Heading into a storm

Class is done. Another hour and I’ll be New York-bound. Or snow-bound. Because as far as I can tell, a winter storm and I will be chasing each other around the Midwest before I finally get closer to the coast. My immediate thought – if I get stranded, at least it wont be like Aurora, Colorado.

But actually I’ve been mulling over a different kind of storm – the one that leads you to create something that roughly can be cast into the domain of “art.” A blogger over at Home Sweet Road writes this about her painting: “My art has always come from darkness.” She muses if she will be able to sustain that quality of painting, now that she has hit a period of tranquility, happiness even.

Will I be reassuring if I write and tell her this: not to worry! People who have lived through a powerful tempest (or two. or three…) never shake it at the core. There is something nicely permanent about that level of sadness which is juicy fuel for all of us who use it to produce the next painting, or chapter in a book. Sweet bedfellows – despair and creativity, egging each other on. They make happiness look soppy and dull.