The Pacific…blue magic
April 28, 2016
Beth Hart’s “LA Song” just happened to play on the radio as I saw the Pacific Ocean again, July 2014, with the verse “I’m going back to LA…” playing in that perfect moment. I was home…as in California. I spent the last few days driving from Kentucky with my mom, leaving a life and starting a new one. The Pacific was my welcome home hug…its deep blue richness, its vastness big enough to hold my heart and everything in it. I was grateful to be home.
The cool grey water with its foggy days gave me wonder for this color: blue. Its energy cool, deep, healing, even romantic…and there was something about its scale so wide I just wanted to dive in and receive its wisdom. The color of water captured my imagination, and the forever horizon comforted my drive to keep exploring. Its salt therapeutic, its cool touch awakening, and its changing color inspired me to paint not only water, but with the water. I remember grabbing two buckets and walking to Twin Lakes Beach in Santa Cruz to grab my first batch, and as I walked back home someone asked, “What are you doing with that water?” I responded, “I’m an artist and I’m going to try and paint with the ocean.” He was a little confused, but intrigued, and this was the first time I titled myself as an “artist.”
The use of this holy water creates a unique effect with my paintings, a crystallization from the salt and perhaps a sense of consciousness that comes alive in art. Water is life…the highs and the lows, the waves, the perfect stillness, the endless horizon of every drop of existence all meshed together for thousands of miles. I wonder where the water has been, how deep, how far…a mystery such as life itself. And as I explore different elements to paint with, I discovered the magical stone Azurite. Another deep blue hue of purity, calmness and wisdom…Azurite is known to awaken the intuitive self, and was called “The stone of Heaven” by the ancient Chinese. And little did I know that when I chose this paint color for a huge commission painting for Market Tavern restaurant, my mentor joked, “You’re going to heal all their customers!” We’ll see about that. With the ocean and Azurite stone, perhaps it’s an invitation to go deeper within ourselves, and remember what is real. Blue is good like that.
And as I drove home back to the Pacific that July 2014, I wrote this passage below. The message? Keep going, keep exploring, keep loving…as the ocean does, and dive right in.
Much Love,
Erin xo
“An open heart can touch the night sky as big as Texas, break into a million little pieces, and spread as far and wide as the Mojave.These pieces seem lost and fragile, and forgotten. But they are not.They only go away for a while, to travel to new places, to experience the madness and magic that feed strength to the soul. The open desert road is the canvas, and the broken pieces are the colors that make what you see, what you feel, what you need. Mile by mile farther away from the immeasurable delusion your heart won’t bare anymore, yet still holding onto the love you felt deeply by the many souls that reside there. Forward now, with your memory scattered over the Bluegrass through the Mississippi and into the Wild West. Out of the past, out of the vortex spiral you thought would catch you. Thousands of miles of an endless open road you take. The path leading you to the Pacific, her dark blue water you know so well that kept your heart in wrap, protected and cared for. With each wave it turns, it gives back a piece of your heart until it is full again. Ready to give again. Ready to let go again. Ready to love again. You’re home.”
3 comments
Comment by Francine Knittel
Francine Knittel April 29, 2016 at 1:06 pm
I love your posts and your beautiful paintings. You are truly an inspiration!!
Comment by Erin Elizabeth
Erin Elizabeth April 29, 2016 at 6:25 pm
Thank you Francine. 🙂 Love and light to you! xo
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