Sipping Tea on Sea Change

Spring in the World, Winter in My Work

Suzanna on Sea Change

I'm in the winter of my creative cycle, struggling with my role as an artist in a world that appears to be disintegrating. My big watercolor painting languishes in my studio, untouched for weeks now. I don't even know what I've been doing instead! Sometimes I almost pick up a brush to work on it—but there's something else that needs to be done.

I think the painting terrifies me. I want this painting to be REALLY good. Like Monet. I want it to invite people into it, to instill in them awe at the beauty of the little piece of nature that inspired it. I want it to give people a place of peace in this troubled world. The painting is in it's ugly stage right now. I know what I need to do. I need to do some practice paintings of areas I want to include in the painting: the evergreen branch budding with new life, an old cedar stump in the forest sprouting a young Doug Fir. The other day, I took lots of photos of stumps on my walk in the woods.

I combed through my 18,000 photos looking for images of stumps that inspired me in the past. I found what I needed.

But then, I lollygagged around, spent hours looking through news feeds, trying to understand what is happening in the Middle East, more hours scrolling through Instagram. I planted a few starts in my small attempt at a garden. I went down to the boat and spent an hour or so talking to Leif, the shipwright who is helping me to set up a reefing system for my sailboat, one that I can actually use even without a strong pair of arms to help.

When the weather warmed and I still couldn’t focus on painting, I took my tea and muffin down to the boat and sat in the cockpit with the sun on my back. The water sparkled with sunlight. Two eagles circled overhead. The tide was out as far as I have ever seen it. I found myself sipping memories along with my tea, memories of sailing with my late husband Bob.

We began our sailing adventures on Memorial Day weekend, just as the weather was warming, and before we began our marriage. We sailed the Salish Sea for many summers together. Mornings would find us anchored in a quiet cove, Bob cooking our breakfast as I sipped my tea, brushed my hair, and wrote in my journal or sketched. Before weighing anchor, we would listen together to the marine weather report on the VHS radio, check the tides and currents, look at the charts, and plan our route for the day. We were co-skippers, planning together, sailing watch on watch.

“Anything you do on a boat is play”, Bob used to say.

When Bob died, I taught my oldest son James to sail, and we sailed for 4 years until the boat maintenance was more than I could keep up. I sold out my share in Sea Change and used the money to travel. Three years later I knew I needed a boat again and bought my current boat, a 27' Catalina I renamed Eli-Oh—and married a non-sailor (who nourishes me in other ways).

There is such peace when sailing. While I am on the boat, the world goes on without me. I don't worry about what I should be doing to make it a better place. The winds and waters of the Salish Sea are my reality. Can I bring the peace of summer sailing into my paintings?

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I am land bound in winter, and the woods and beach are my sacred space, my inspiration. One evening in March I walked the Judd Creek Nature Trail. As I stood on a bridge over Judd Creek looking up stream, the soft golden light on the naked trees and grasses filled me with joy. Since then, spring has ripened. Salmon berry blossoms bloomed, and the evergreens began to bud, bringing even more joy.

Inspiration for the BIG 4’x5.5’ painting

I immersed myself in Monet's paintings in a "Monet Immersion Experience", and I saw the huge paintings by Juan Quick-to-See Smith. Wow! I looked at the 5' tall roll of watercolor paper I bought 2 decades ago, and the really big brushes I bought in China, never used. I thought, NOW is the time to paint big, the way I always knew I would.

I bought a piece of masonite large enough for the 4' x 5.5' painting I had in mind but light enough for me to move around in my not-so-big studio. I attached the paper to it with blue masking tape. I mixed up pots of watercolor in blues, greens, and gold. I went to work. For a few days. Then something else needed my time and space, and there it sits—has sat, for weeks, along with several small paintings I started about the same time.

Are all these paintings dead now? Will I ever get back to them? Will the warmth of spring and time on the boat melt this winter dullness in my creative cycle?

OTHER NEWS:

My painting on silk, “Butterfly Lovers” will be on sale at the Vashon Center for the Arts in the Secret Garden themed show during June, in celebration of the Garden Tour. Check it out there if you can. I would so love for this piece to bring a good donation to VCA to support their classes and performances. I plan to donate my share of the sale of this piece to “Women Hold the Key”, an organization supporting women.

“Butterfly Lovers”, based on a famous Chinese tale, was inspired by my travel to China in 2009. I crossed this bridge and sketched it in Houzhou while visiting my brother and my Chinese sister in law, Xiao Ning. The story struck a chord in me, as the heroine had to disguise herself as a man in order to go to school. Women all over the world still struggle to complete our educations, either because men don’t think women need to be educated or because care of children and household duties are so demanding. I finished college myself as a single woman raising three sons, and over the objections of my father.

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Juan Quick-to-See Smith Memory Map

About Juan Quick to See

Monet Emmersive Experience

Suzanna Leigh website

Butterfly Lovers painting on silk

Vashon Center for the Arts

Women Hold the Key