A painting of a person represents a tableau of the reality of a life, or lives, that currently exist or existed previously. The textured canvas holds the aspirations of the figures within that frozen moment. Timeless, the painting connects generations to life, a vision, or a world that once was.
When I came up with that thought, I had just recently reconnected with a friend of mine. It was ten years since we talked last, and we picked up our friendship where we left off. We got discussing what we’ve been doing over the last ten years. He took up painting for a few years and opened his own shop for making custom pallet headboards. I mentioned that I took up writing, schooling, and DIY home projects. So over the next few days, we shared our work with each other. I was stunned when he sent me his paintings, specifically the subject matter. Every single painting coincided with events that took place in a novel that I wrote. I asked him if I could use his paintings for advertising my material, and he did not hesitate to say yes.
So I added a snippet of a chapter-opening to his painting and sent it back to him via text message.
He immediately asked, “when did you come up with this quote?”
I rifled through my notes and my work and found that I wrote it on November 17th, 2019, and jokingly submitted my evidence to prove it.
He was just as surprised as I was and said that “we must have some sort of connection or something.”
Here is the painting:
The painting hits on every point that the quote was trying to make. Capturing people’s lives, in this case, a father and daughter holding hands, connecting generations frozen in time, we get a taste of a world in which they live.
I genuinely love perusing over older paintings and getting lost in the details. You get an idea of its importance when you look over cave paintings from thousands of years ago and get a taste of the type of culture that the earlier civilizations were cultivating.
To me, it is a very natural behavior. I am not a painter by any means but do understand its importance. It’s an outlet for emotion, cathartic, and really can be considered a form of mediation. Artists being able to create frozen moments in time are such extraordinary people. With the stroke of their hand, they capture the emotions of a moment.
If you agree that painting is an extraordinary talent to possess and serves an important purpose to society, let me know, send me a like!
Thanks for reading!
Travis
Travis J. McRoy 