– An oil painting on 12×16 stretched canvas. Not varnished or framed.
– The subject of the painting is a semi-transparent ocean wave with sharks suspended inside. It’s based off the following passage from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:
– “If you stand where the ocean break on a shallow beach, you see the raised water in a wave is translucent, shot with lights. One late afternoon at low tide a hundred big sharks passed the beach near the mouth of a tidal river in a feeding frenzy. As each green wave rose from the churning water, it illuminated within itself the six-or eight-foot-long bodies of twisting sharks. The sharks disappeared as each wave rolled toward me; then a new wave would swell above the horizon, containing in it, like scorpions in amber, sharks roiled and heaved. The sight held awesome wonders: power and beauty, grace tangled in a rapture with violence.”

– I’ve found it very important to trust myself and to follow the joyful parts of painting. I intended to save the palette work for only some finishing touches, but after finishing the base layer I couldn’t stop myself from diving into the exciting texture of the waves. I kept building on it until the point of no return and the whole thing needed to be done with the knife, but I’m quite happy with the end result. Is part of that just a product of impatience and inexperience? Probably 🙂 But I like to think it it was just a little bit of divine inspiration. Or at the very least a happy accident.
– I also noted how interesting it was to work with the sharks’ shadows. When looking at references, I noticed their silhouettes become darker the closer to the water’s surface (and the viewer) they are – which was a real challenge to wrap my brain around since we usually assume shadows fall to the back of a figure.

My piece is meant to represent a moment I’m looking for every time I go for a hike or even a drive. A fantastic moment that brings you into the present and ignites your senses. It does not necessarily need to be a fantastic or rare occurrence like these sharks might have been. Sometimes a sunset does it, the smell after it rains, or spotting a giant caterpillar that’s fatter than one of my fingers. The description of this scene just made me feel like I was there, so I tried to make some recreation of it.

In the book, Annie writes about ‘the tree with the lights in it’ – referencing the moment of being awestruck with the world for a moment. Picturing these sharks churning in the waves and suspended “like scorpions in amber” invoked a nugget of that feeling for me when I read it, and I wanted to attempt to capture it in oils.

Years ago, a yoga instructor introduced me to the concept of finding your “edge.” It is essentially just a sweet spot between challenging yourself and finding a sense of ease and gentleness as you move through poses (or any area of your life). This artwork has encouraged me to explore finding that edge with my artistic practice too. Where is the fine line between following the rules and experimentation? And where within that sweet spot can I find the most joy and while still producing the best results? In general, how do I find balance? I plan to explore these questions by embracing more spontaneous decisions when they strike me/my artwork.

As mentioned before, I’ve learned to trust myself to lean into the more joyful parts of painting more. And to be patient with myself and my growth. I’ve also learned a bit more about palette knife technique!