"Forgive Me" ©2007 16"x 20" Acrylic on Canvasboard
This one wasn't initially a self-portrait. I don't look like this anymore...and especially not the time that I actually painted it. It was made in the first half of 2007 when my grandmother was in the hospital, and was soon to pass on. It was a very sad 6 months, but for some reason, I felt good too. I'm thinking it was some sort of overcompensation for knowing I was going to lose my last living grandparent soon, I needed something to keep me going. So I had a lot of experimentation with "nice" colors in my paintings, and it was also the most prolific I had ever been in churning out paintings day after day. I think I was trying to counterbalance the sadness.
When I finished this one, I brought it in with me while I visited my therapist (as I would typically do) thinking "This is a pretty nice-looking painting compared to the other stuff I do, it's got pink in it!" But when I showed it to my therapist, he took a long look at it and then said... "Forgive you for what?"
It kind of shocked me then, but now I can completely see what he saw. My pain, the so-called whitewashing of it (or "pink-washing" if you want to get technical), the beauty in the pretense I was trying to put forward -"I'm totally fine right now. No, REALLY!" while it was completely apparent I was not. Beauty and pain and a lot of guilt for stopping seeing my Grandma in the hospital three months after she'd been in there, and another three months before she died. The sacrificial nature of it (crown of thorns) - I'd been told not to go back to see her, to remember her as she was, BY my therapist, and I think he was right in the end to tell me to stop. (I had too much difficulty with it and was quite literally shutting down during the hospital visits with my parents - as in, I couldn't even finish walking to the door when we'd leave, I'd have to collapse on the floor and try not to fall asleep/pass out. Every time. I wasn't helping my Grandma, and I was not helping myself or my parents, either).
In the end, I actually gave this picture to my therapist (who was also a very good friend and I'd been seeing him in therapy for 13 years by then) free of charge. He deserved it, he had done me a lot of good. He was graciously thankful. Then, barely two years later in June 2009, my therapist died, himself, at the young age of 54 to an illness he'd had for as long as I'd known him. It was devastating. Several months later, his wife (whom I also miss very much) sent me back two paintings - and this was one of them. I never thought I'd see it again, and hoped she would keep it as a reminder of him and how good of a doctor he was and so careful but honest with me, too. So much so that you could even argue that he was a family friend. He cared so much about his patients. But it was sent back to me in November that year, with a note she wrote about how well he thought of me and my "struggle" to take back my life. That he had loved the two paintings I'd given him, but he was no longer here. To let the painters be a reminder to me of how much he had cared for me. Things had come full circle.
Now when I look at this painting, and the "Forgive me..." title...the pain, the roses and the woman my therapist knew was actually me (before I did!) and his very sincere question, "Forgive you for what?" and remember that with the very few people I knew back then, I had done nothing to be forgiven for. Not even for stopping seeing my Grandma in the last 3 months of her life (which was spent in a semi-conscious/fully medicated netherworld, where she was unreachable by the living) and knowing that she would have wanted me to remember her as she was when she was well. I also know my therapist would want the same of me. So this painting is of the pain and the beauty of knowing and loving the two people I had known in good times and bad, and in their last time on earth. Now I know what my therapist was trying to say, that there was nothing I needed to be forgiven for.
This one wasn't initially a self-portrait. I don't look like this anymore...and especially not the time that I actually painted it. It was made in the first half of 2007 when my grandmother was in the hospital, and was soon to pass on. It was a very sad 6 months, but for some reason, I felt good too. I'm thinking it was some sort of overcompensation for knowing I was going to lose my last living grandparent soon, I needed something to keep me going. So I had a lot of experimentation with "nice" colors in my paintings, and it was also the most prolific I had ever been in churning out paintings day after day. I think I was trying to counterbalance the sadness.
When I finished this one, I brought it in with me while I visited my therapist (as I would typically do) thinking "This is a pretty nice-looking painting compared to the other stuff I do, it's got pink in it!" But when I showed it to my therapist, he took a long look at it and then said... "Forgive you for what?"
It kind of shocked me then, but now I can completely see what he saw. My pain, the so-called whitewashing of it (or "pink-washing" if you want to get technical), the beauty in the pretense I was trying to put forward -"I'm totally fine right now. No, REALLY!" while it was completely apparent I was not. Beauty and pain and a lot of guilt for stopping seeing my Grandma in the hospital three months after she'd been in there, and another three months before she died. The sacrificial nature of it (crown of thorns) - I'd been told not to go back to see her, to remember her as she was, BY my therapist, and I think he was right in the end to tell me to stop. (I had too much difficulty with it and was quite literally shutting down during the hospital visits with my parents - as in, I couldn't even finish walking to the door when we'd leave, I'd have to collapse on the floor and try not to fall asleep/pass out. Every time. I wasn't helping my Grandma, and I was not helping myself or my parents, either).
In the end, I actually gave this picture to my therapist (who was also a very good friend and I'd been seeing him in therapy for 13 years by then) free of charge. He deserved it, he had done me a lot of good. He was graciously thankful. Then, barely two years later in June 2009, my therapist died, himself, at the young age of 54 to an illness he'd had for as long as I'd known him. It was devastating. Several months later, his wife (whom I also miss very much) sent me back two paintings - and this was one of them. I never thought I'd see it again, and hoped she would keep it as a reminder of him and how good of a doctor he was and so careful but honest with me, too. So much so that you could even argue that he was a family friend. He cared so much about his patients. But it was sent back to me in November that year, with a note she wrote about how well he thought of me and my "struggle" to take back my life. That he had loved the two paintings I'd given him, but he was no longer here. To let the painters be a reminder to me of how much he had cared for me. Things had come full circle.
Now when I look at this painting, and the "Forgive me..." title...the pain, the roses and the woman my therapist knew was actually me (before I did!) and his very sincere question, "Forgive you for what?" and remember that with the very few people I knew back then, I had done nothing to be forgiven for. Not even for stopping seeing my Grandma in the last 3 months of her life (which was spent in a semi-conscious/fully medicated netherworld, where she was unreachable by the living) and knowing that she would have wanted me to remember her as she was when she was well. I also know my therapist would want the same of me. So this painting is of the pain and the beauty of knowing and loving the two people I had known in good times and bad, and in their last time on earth. Now I know what my therapist was trying to say, that there was nothing I needed to be forgiven for.
