New Year's Eve Painting
Hi lovely art patrons!
New Year's Eve is upon us. Did you know that I created a painting by that name?
I was carving the marble Gymnast in Texas on December 31, 2010, when the scent of the air changed. The wind picked up, as did my excitement. I ran to our open field and saw a gorgeous sunset happening, tinged with gold at the edge of the clouds. The sky was drifting.
I had run back to the house and begged my husband to come experience this with me, but he told me to run on ahead as he was busy with his calculations. I did.
And later I attempted to paint this wonderful feeling. However, how does one paint a scent, the wind, the change in temperature? I set the work aside, telling myself that I had just created a boring scene that lacked what I felt.
In 2011, John and I divorced. It was a crazy year for me as I tried to wrap up my sculpture projects, as well as write my book. I moved to be with my sister who lived two hours away in a neighborhood near the US Army base Ft. Hood (renamed in May 2023 as Fort Cavazos). Her husband was in Afghanistan and she was pregnant and needed my help to create her plastic mustaches (WhiskerWorks.com). Fumes were bad for the baby.
I was there for two months. It was the only time I could write my street painting book because it was not feasible for me to pack up my art, or to commute. I was lucky in that my baby was born before hers was.... just. My sister Amber was the graphic designer for the book and she knew she would have no time for that after their first son was born. (Her husband Alex returned from his military service and wrote the text on the back of the book!)
Anyway, it was probably while I was chasing the fresh-out-of-the-mold plastic mustaches, a safe, repetitive task that allowed my brain to do other things, that an idea for what to add to my sky painting emerged.
Once home again, I took my favorite wedding photo and curved it in my hand. I wanted to have a model of it, as if the wind was blowing away something important and beautiful, and lost. We did have a good thing, but I was lonely and therefore felt there was something else I had to try. However, I also felt that I needed to protect my love, and thus hid him from being shown in the painting.
The phrase "New Year's Eve" describes a beginning and an ending in the same thought. And it was a perfect match, the photo to this sunset, which I had actually seen on the namesake day of the transition to a new year.
To see more images of this artwork, go here:
https://borsheimarts.com/products/new-years-eve-oil-painting
For 2024, while I am still healing from that horrible accident with the wave on my back, it is clear that I will be unable to make much art for several more months. I start therapy on the 12th of January. Thus, it will be difficult for me to share with you much fun art-process images and videos and text.
Is there something else you would enjoy reading about? I have tons of images from various hikes around Italy.... perhaps more stories of some of my past adventures?
I really hate to bore you or whine about my health situation. On the world picture, I am hardly in a bad place. I would love your feedback about what interests you so that I do not waste your time.
And in closing, please remember how important you are to me and my ability to remain an artist in any way that I can manage. My artistic life is nowhere near over and like the painting described above, in one way or another, this humbling experience will show up in my artwork.
Thank you and Happy 2024!
Cheers to you,
Kelly Borsheim