LOVE IS...

"love is..." @ 6" x  6", pigma pens, color pencil on canson white paper, 2013

As Valentines Day, 2013 comes to a close I'm finally getting a moment to post this ode to LOVE.  It's been a busy day so far, not that I'm complaining.  I got to go to see "Silver Linings Playbook" with my hubby, in the triple fancy luxe level, where the fancy folk sit and watch the film while dining in extra comfy seats (that guy knows how to show me a good time!)  What a movie!  It was amazing and hysterical, though sometimes it hit a little close to home with the bi-polar mood swing episodes.  It was real and occasionally scary, but that's part of living in love.

Living in love.  What is that, anyway?  The question led me to work and weave my way through the piece I'm posting tonight.  I wrote out the words "love is" in a loose, loopy script, then added the textures and patterns in the letters themselves.  A tangle of rocks, gems, a plaid rose, harp strings, veins and abstract patterns came together to represent the roughness, the beauty, the organic, hypnotic and neurotic nature of love in life.  Love is everything and everywhere.  It starts somewhere deep inside and reaches out and around, expanding and contracting at the same time.  Where it goes from there depends on how much love can be generated and absorbed.  Geez!  That's deep! 

I have found that in my 52 years so far I have discovered so many facets of love.  I'm lucky to have felt loved as a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, an artist, friend.  And I've given a lifetime of love in return.  But somehow, still, I feel like I'm not quite complete.

To this day I have the hardest time with how to love myself.  But I'm learning a little bit every day.  I'm looking up, down, in, out and all around myself and I see something new each and every time.  Yes, sometimes it's still hard to live in love with myself.  It's so much easier to give it to my family and the rest of the world.  But I try to look at it this way; hopefully... fingers crossed... I'm only halfway through my time here on Earth, so there are still plenty of moments waiting to be created, experienced and shared.  
Yes, there's plenty of love to live, and life to love.

Happy Valentine's Night...

Thanks for looking,

Claire