Finishing a painting, a collection, or a lifetime of work feels like uncorking fine wine. Generations in the cellar, we sense a slight foral fragrance, with a distinct earthiness. Does the aroma taste like the earth where it's rooted? Is it heartful, yet light and sparkling?

Completing the exhibition opens my New Efflorescence Pathway. Peek at what's on my easel this week.

Resilience Series detail

With all that's going on in the world, I thought I'd need extra resilience. In January I started a series I call Resilience to mirror and magnify this much-needed energy. I'd read that orchids signify strength and resilience, and I have two that are fighting for survival in my cold dry winter studio. A great place to start, so I invested in a humidifier, a distiller, and a new daily routine of keeping them both flowing.

I began by drawing expressionist orchid essences, then something unexpected happened. Rather than orchids fighing for survival, what came through during the ice storms mirrors my icy garden by the frozen pond.

The painting silently speaks resilience that I mistook for missing! While orchids languish dormant in my studio, I feel delight ~ discovering vibrant cabbages, blooming hellebores, purple pansies, bright gold crocus among lively green anemones, all flourishing among the oak leaves coming through the painting.

Among icy metallic matte pigments, earthy bronze, shimmering blue, and radiant gold, I feel comforted, rooted. Drawing with twigs of charred willow and raw earth pastel pigments, my hand comes to life fulfilling a dream I'd given up.

Recovering the delicate pastel abstract landscapes I'd painted decades ago ~ before all the trauma ~ still rooted, alive, and regenerated as energetic essences of mixed media on canvas, my own expressionist pathway of resilience opens the efflorescence pathway.