About Business as Usual

At this time while we are aware of the horrific events in Japan, I and people I know and many that I don’t know are in our studios focusing on a line, a shape, a color, a texture.

Isn’t there always some horror somewhere? Of the natural kind, or blood shed for political upheaval or famine taking children’s lives or AIDS decimating a population? How then do we go about business as usual? I was celebrating a birthday, grateful for all the love in my life as others were attempting to cope with unimaginable loss. I remember clearly walking out of the house where my best friend lay dying and being surprised and offended by the world looking so normal. I was on my way to do some grocery shopping.

We form a picture of the world when we are young which is constantly under revision. The experiences that darkened my world were about death: I was ten years old when I lost a beloved aunt and a dear cousin, my puppy was run over and died, and I saw some horrific wartime photos. These experiences influenced the choices I made ever after. I wonder about the survivors of the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and of devastating earthquakes and other catastrophes. How did their lives go on?

Only recently have I understood how that sudden first experience of death shaped my life. At some unthinking level, I chose to make my life about life. To this day I am reluctant to miss anything that life offers with the result that I have made many very unrealistic decisions. Supporting myself by painting is amongst the silliest of these. A totally romantic decision, but it was the right choice.

Writer E.B. White said: “All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.” I do too. In spite of the fact that our lives can be taken with no regard for the plans we make. Edna Saint Vincent Millay ended a poem about loss with these words: Life must go on; I forget just why.


The image above is Lament ©1996, acrylic on paper mounted on canvas, 22" x 68.