This has been a really interesting week. I have been painting with energy like I haven’t had in years. Many wonderful encounters with dear friends from the past who have taken the time and interest to converse with me has left me with a wonderful sense of healing and support. My Dad visited me yesterday and while I was busy painting and working on the final colors of a large painting, he watched me. I don’t remember him ever doing this and while I knew his eyes were on me I felt happy that he was seeing me do something I’ve been doing now for countless thousands of hours in this lifetime and, most certainly in lifetimes long gone. He finally spoke and said “you’ve been doing this for a long time now” “Yes I have, about 18 years now “was my reply. He then said “this is your legacy, this work will be around for a very long time, after you’re gone”. I said “Dad, I don’t paint for now anymore, I probably never really have or I’d be painting pretty little landscapes” I then recited my favorite struggling artist quote…The artist life is the best life if you can survive the first 4o years…Paraphrasing The Great Thomas Hart Benton. This morning he sends me two emails, one to say how proud and excited he was with my new works. The next was to show me an ad from a local Museum that is running a show for a long dead artist that I feel strongly connected to from another life. He wanted to see the exhibition with me, knowing my Dad and art not being a lifelong interest to him, I was moved in a very happy Full Circle kind of way.
I was corresponding with a very dear old friend by email later in the day and we were talking about Past Lives or Other Lives. I sent this picture of Newspaper Rock in Southern Utah and I wrote the following…This is Newspaper Rock, it is a place beside a creek , in a grove of trees in Southern Utah…For a thousand years people have been coming to this place and carving out stories on the rock face…This Rock is what our souls are like…Countless lives and countless people visiting and writing stories on our memory…Everyone you have ever Loved, hated, made your heart leap or caused you pain in this lifetime has crossed your path before…
This I believe to be true, this understanding guides me and may it guide you in all present actions…
Robhooper Blog 