Original available: $300
“Be Softer”
20” x 20” Acrylic
Gallery profile (1.5” depth) gallery wrapped canvas
Finish: Professional satin varnish
Prints available (see below)
“Beneath the Surface” card included with purchase of print or original.
Beneath the Surface
“Be Softer” has two different - but very connected - meanings.
The first is this: this piece feels to me like being gentle with myself. Being kind, being soft with myself. Like grabbing a mason jar from my kitchen cupboard and filling it with living beauty, just because I want to. Because yes, I can give myself small gifts like this. Gathering and curating beauty around me has nothing to do with deserving or not deserving it - we don’t earn softness with our performance. It has to do with the simple fact that we were created to live fully alive, leaning into life and beauty - including that which we can see with our eyes when we bring elements of nature into our home. This is beauty that softens our surroundings - and in so doing - if we let it - softens our insides.
Here’s the second piece of it: life throws so much loss and grief at us, right? Betrayals, crushed hopes, unmet longings, plot twists we never expected or desired - things that, if we’re not intentional in our internal responses, can begin to harden us inside. Can cause our hearts to close off toward hope; can, almost without our awareness, train us to perpetually expect the worst from life. It’s so easy - and sometimes feels like it’d hurt less - to stop looking for goodness and beauty. Life’s brutality is less shocking when you’re expecting it, right?
Through all my losses - and I’ve experienced many - I’ve learned that if I can persist in living wholeheartedly - keep playing and loving hard, stay awake toward beauty, keep myself open to the small gifts - I can continue to cultivate a heart that’s soft. I can give life and love and people the benefit of the doubt. I can laugh with my head thrown back and enjoy people and nature and music and art and God with all that I am. I can receive all of God’s extravagance and gratefully bask in it.
If life has thrown losses your way and you resonate with this desire to soften even more in the face of circumstances that would try to harden you and shut you down… this painting is my prayer for you. May you stay tender. May you be softer.
Original available: $300
“Be Softer”
20” x 20” Acrylic
Gallery profile (1.5” depth) gallery wrapped canvas
Finish: Professional satin varnish
Prints available (see below)
“Beneath the Surface” card included with purchase of print or original.
Beneath the Surface
“Be Softer” has two different - but very connected - meanings.
The first is this: this piece feels to me like being gentle with myself. Being kind, being soft with myself. Like grabbing a mason jar from my kitchen cupboard and filling it with living beauty, just because I want to. Because yes, I can give myself small gifts like this. Gathering and curating beauty around me has nothing to do with deserving or not deserving it - we don’t earn softness with our performance. It has to do with the simple fact that we were created to live fully alive, leaning into life and beauty - including that which we can see with our eyes when we bring elements of nature into our home. This is beauty that softens our surroundings - and in so doing - if we let it - softens our insides.
Here’s the second piece of it: life throws so much loss and grief at us, right? Betrayals, crushed hopes, unmet longings, plot twists we never expected or desired - things that, if we’re not intentional in our internal responses, can begin to harden us inside. Can cause our hearts to close off toward hope; can, almost without our awareness, train us to perpetually expect the worst from life. It’s so easy - and sometimes feels like it’d hurt less - to stop looking for goodness and beauty. Life’s brutality is less shocking when you’re expecting it, right?
Through all my losses - and I’ve experienced many - I’ve learned that if I can persist in living wholeheartedly - keep playing and loving hard, stay awake toward beauty, keep myself open to the small gifts - I can continue to cultivate a heart that’s soft. I can give life and love and people the benefit of the doubt. I can laugh with my head thrown back and enjoy people and nature and music and art and God with all that I am. I can receive all of God’s extravagance and gratefully bask in it.
If life has thrown losses your way and you resonate with this desire to soften even more in the face of circumstances that would try to harden you and shut you down… this painting is my prayer for you. May you stay tender. May you be softer.
