NATURE OR NURTURE.

I painted a portrait of my father today. It left me in tears.

My father passed away over a decade ago. We left each other on excellent terms.

Which to be frank, was not always the case. I am deeply thankful, we came to understand each other in the years before he died.

It happened quite out of nowhere, largely due to the fact I had put a toned ground on a piece of work I am doing in between major projects and I didn't want to have to sit around for several hours waiting for it to set enough to continue. I had, several years ago, roughed out, (very rough indeed.) a small-ish canvas planning on doing a portrait of him for myself. As a completely impulse decision I dug around and found it with a couple of orphans in a corner and just started with the limited colors I had laid out for the other thing.

The thing I wonder about most is the fact I barely remember painting it. It just seemed to appear out of thin air. And, it's the man himself without a doubt.

When it was over I was shaking and in tears.

I was so involved in the process I lost myself to the point of nearly negating conscience thought running on almost total instinct. This has happened only a handful of times with fingers left over in the thirty odd years I have been painting. You will never see it, except perhaps after I am myself dead and someone puts out a "life's work" book. That's the way it should be.

I feel blessed.

M.Z.

ps: the final "burning brightly" tiger blog and image will be up sometime tomorrow.

peace,

m.z.