One of the best things about being an artist is doing what I love to do; I create art.
Blank Canvas
Being able to do this is an amazing opportunity. I get to choose beautiful pieces of wood and create things with them. Sometimes I’ll see a piece of wood and immediately know which pattern or design I want, while other times I know I want the piece but not what I want to put on it.
This past weekend I sold a piece that spoke to me.
Recently I met another wood-burning artist, Jessica, and her partner Drew from Crowley’s Crafty Creations. Jessica uses a technique called fractal wood-burning to create her pieces. In fractal burning, you use electricity, water, and baking soda to gouge the wood. The end result looks like lightning. I acquired some pieces of her work and KNEW exactly what I wanted to create with it.
Fate Whispers
There is a quote that I love:
“’Fate whispers to the warrior, ‘You cannot withstand the storm.” She whispers back, ‘I am the storm’’.
Some sources attribute it to Jake Remington while others claim it is unknown. What I love about this quote is that it expresses fortitude, perseverance, fate, and defiance. Life can be clear skies but is balanced with thunderous storms. We all want to live basking in the sun on clear, beautiful days but it takes so much more to live, to fight, and to persevere through the storms. Life is about balance.
When I first discovered this quote I was going through an extremely tough spot in my life; I had made the decision to leave a marriage of ten and a half years, COVID had just started, and I was feeling unfulfilled at my job. My life was uncertain and I was out of balance. I had started seeing someone but he lived in another state and I was traveling up and down the east coast trying to maintain a long-distance relationship.
When the COVID lockdowns began I was with him, hundreds of miles away from my life. The life I lived for decades. I was presented with a very difficult question; Was I going to take a chance on the life I dreamed of? The first year was chaotic. My parents raised me to be independent, to never give up, and to persevere. Leaving my old life behind was scary but, at the same time, it felt freeing. I was ready to make a change.
It wasn’t easy. There were many things in my old life that needed to be finalized. The sun gave way to many storms. No matter how many storms came and went I knew they weren’t going to break me. I was, and am, defiant. And yes, I married that man and we started a business together. He’s the B of BZ.
Bringing the Storm
When I saw the piece Jessica made I knew this was the quote to put on it. The burns looked like lightning flowing across the wood. It was perfect and all I could hope for was that it would speak to someone the same way it had for me. I hoped it would remind a woman of her worth and her strength. That it reminds her to persevere.
This past weekend a customer bought the piece. She told Brian and me that she was planning to give it to her daughter. Her daughter fought cancer multiple times, miscarriages, pregnancies, and relapsing cancer. The prognosis was not good and yet years later she’s still here fighting. She is facing the storm.
To say her story brings me to tears is an understatement. I don’t know her, I don’t know her whole story and to be honest, I don’t need to. I know what her mother told me, I saw the look in her mother’s eyes, the sadness that her child is having to fight, and I saw her pride. That her daughter is still fighting, still living.
She’s bringing the storm.
