Art As Therapy (Part 1) ~ Self Portrait No.4

“Poor Sad Bastard” ~ After all these years I finally got to fall in love again! But alas, it ended too soon. A well meaning friend told me with a symptomatic tone, "people come into our lives for: a reason, a season, or a life" I must of been looking like some poor sad bastard to get that pep talk :) 

Whatever it was, she was great ~ but it has left me a little wilted. So when I look at this piece, I see there's a happy-sad thing going on. Colors are more subdued and the lines are hard, yet there is a positive upwards movement to the whole piece. Hopeful and scared at the same time…you know.

*A person made a commented on this post 1/21/2012. Among other things, she said she saw more pain than joy in the piece. Never one to back down when someone calls me on my crap; I took an introspective look at what I had painted. 

All of the things I had been talking about in the last few post were right there. Emotion in motion! (Sorry Billy Squire), but still, the Bluesy music I’ve been listening to, the internal sunshine turning into a stormy day, and even the exquisite funk! 

This self-portrait was a product of all that ~ even better it was a photograph of my guts as I worked through all this stuff.

I thought about this as I studied it. I saw less positive upward movement, if any at all. I saw the first lightning strike over the heart with fresh red puncture wounds, the second strike happening on the far left side of the page; obviously something else going on there.  And maybe ~ just maybe, there was a falling back, and not an upward movement. 

I like the fact my darker emotions got in there and mixed stuff up. I still stand by my romantic, sunshiny self and say “Love rocks and Girls rule…and I would do it over again, a hundred times!”

* Added 1/23/2012