A Diary Entry/Manifesto About Painting Commissions/About Love

Make the commission paintings larger than the canvas. Tell their story before and after the canvas. Get a running start so you’re already in-stride when it comes time to move your brush across the actual piece that will be handed over. Make that piece only a PIECE of a larger story. Give it context in your life, in itself - of itself. Craft a whole story, then make a map with a key, imbed clues. Go a little crazy romantic. Get the safety deposit box. Hide a key. Plant the scavenger hunt to lead the way to the treasure. Every detail needs a reason. Every symbol is a tool to understanding.

We cry out - Hear Our Story! I matter and here is why. This is why. This is What and Who I loved. My love makes my life mean. And it was not a waste. I did not love in vain. My life is not a waste. I’ll prove it, here and now. And Again here and over there.

I hurt and I helped. I popped open from a seed. I bled and I ran away and toward. People have seen me naked, in the dark, in the light. I did not hide everything. I hid some things. I betrayed and was betrayed. I over extended here and withheld there. And I was forgiven. Ultimately each day is an account of every forgiveness I have received and extended. Every person’s name carved into my arm I have forgiven.

For to love is to ask for forgiveness.

We cannot split wide open without spilling on the carpet, without staining the floor and the fingertips and leaking from the eyelids. So when we love, we say “You matter. You’re human and imperfect and you’ve split open for me, and I’m honored to see your stain on my floor.”

We hold each other together - closed - at the seams, gingerly, tenderly, like spoons in frozen cream, like twine wrapped three times.

We take as much as we can carry, and a little more. And when we love we say, “It’s not so heavy and I can hold a little more.” And we take breaks, some last forever, nevermore to twine our messy little hearts. But some breaks are short and taken in stride, they happen in the night, or abroad, or at the grocery store. Some breaks renew us and others divide us. But still, we loved, you can be sure. I can prove it, by the stain on the floor.

This is what my commissions are. An account of the evidence set forth on record between people who share a home. An official statement on the record of artistic court - sworn, embellished, romantic, real. This is how we celebrate the victory of committing - of opting to matter to someone other than ourselves. This is how we affirm that all the near-death moments are worth a lifetime of “yes.” And “you’re enough” and “I will let you see me, here, and tomorrow and over there and when we’re old.”

These paintings bridge the space between now and birth and beginnings, and later and loss and passing back to the Earth - our spaceship of wet leaves and dirt and ore putting on a show each night, of galaxies on parade and dark dark space large enough to hold all of our hopes, and powerful enough to vacuum up all the memories we cannot bear. So, I shall put it all on the canvas - or else give it to the night, to hold for me for all eternity, or else be converted back into rust and copper and iron and dust, returning to Earth in another body, another life - for another round of merrily going going, spilling and loving, messy on the floor.

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