Coming to Life (3)

So for now

travel with me

on this journey

by train of thought.

Look out the window of your soul

and see for yourself

how the light strikes the ground—

from your particular vantage point,

at this now and that here.

I wish you a pleasant journey,

 a bon voyage,

a good seeing.

Polly Berends, Coming to Life

Before:

After:

Begin to Notice What Is Uppermost in Your Mind
3.5 x 5.5" postcard; acrylic, ink, and collage on cardstock
abstract
2020

Coming to Life (2)

The idea is 
to lose our life
to find it 
by losing our mind
to find it. 
For just this one moment,
live by and rely on the sufficiency
of the immediately available truth
as if you knew it was reliable.
That's when,
not before,
we feel this force beneath us.
We cannot feel its force
until we are relying on it utterly.

Polly Berrien Berends, Coming to Life


Before:

After:

God Is as Reliable as I Am Reliant
3.5 x 5.5" postcard; acrylic, ink, and collage on cardstock
abstract
2020

-----

Really had fun painting with collage here. The intuitive unfettered free-play exercised when creating the original sketch gave way to the satisfyingly focused detail-oriented color-matching and finishing I did just now, two years later. 

Coming to Life (1)

This is indeed the day

that the Lord hath made;

let us be glad 

and rejoice in it!

We have to start sometime.

Now!

We have to start somehow.

See!

We have to start somewhere.

Here!

Polly Berrien Berends, Coming to Life

Before:

After:

Holy Humdrum and Holy Hardship
3.5 x 5.5" postcard; acrylic, ink, and collage on cardstock
abstract
2020

Coming to Life: Prologue

Back in mid-August, I had an itch to generate another series of postcards. Truth to tell, it wasn't even fully an itch; it was more like a barely perceptible sensation that perhaps a stray hair had glanced across my skin and then blown away.

Nonetheless, I brought a hand to the sensation and gave it a quick light scratch.

You know how that goes!

Next thing I knew I was at my paper cutter with a painting exercise I'd done two summers ago.

Here's what had sat in a drawer for two years untouched:

August 2018 painting sketch
11 x 14"; acrylic and ink on card stock (calendar poster)

Here's what I have at hand now:

Scratch scratch scratch …

Pressing My Nose Right Into Freshly Cut Grass

I get to press my nose right into the freshly cut grass of my new painting but, what with pandemic-induced physical distancing, you don't get to hang out in my dining area and do the same.

So, as in multiple other situations these days, instead of inviting you to open the screen door at my home and walk right in, I invite you to a screen:

detail,
The Smell of Freshly Cut Grass Itching at My Nose

detail

detail

detail

detail

detail

detail

Dear Diary

Random 'pages'
from a visual diary
depicting the history
of a single painting
that expresses
my inner life
across several months
during a time
of intense
personal and global
not knowing …

4/19/20

5/8/20

detail, 5/21/20

detail, 5/26/20

detail, 6/4/20

The Smell of Freshly Cut Grass Itching at My Nose
24 x 48"; acrylic, charcoal, pencil, oil pastel, and collage on canvas
abstract landscape
2020

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (20)

 On my nightstand

If my nose were cut off 

I would have no memories. 

When I have lain awake all night 

and my eyes are finally closing 

I’ll get a whiff of something far off, 

from another year, 

another county ...

Sometimes there are only smells: 

the smell of chickens; 

the smell of Miss Finch’s stale breath 

and the hard candies by her bed, 

peppermint, 

all stuck together with the heat of her house; 

the smell of Matt’s math books 

where you crack the bindings, they’re so new; 

the smell of May in the kitchen 

frying the onions.

Jane Hamilton, The Book of Ruth

On my wall!

The Smell of Freshly Cut Grass Itching at My Nose
24 x 48"; acrylic, charcoal, pencil, oil pastel, and collage on canvas
abstract landscape
2020