“When she revealed the painting, everyone gasped. It completely left us breathless.”
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It was just a handful of us female artists in zoom preparing for our LIVE watercolor session, on a day that was especially heavy for one of us in particular, Anna Marie; the due date of a lost pregnancy, (and not the only one this year.)
Smiling through the tears in her eyes, Anna Marie asked,
“Do you guys want to see some really ugly art?”
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“Absolutely, whaddya got for us?”
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When she revealed the painting, everyone gasped. It completely left us breathless. It depicted in watercolor, a woman’s deepest loss…bloody, raw and absolutely beautiful. The title, which she is not quite ready to share, is truly what broke the dam welling up in my eyes.
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“It’s not going to win any awards or be on display in any galleries, but it needed to be painted. It was for me.”
Anna Marie has fittingly called it “hard art.” It’s the art that needs to be born. It's about the HUMANITY.
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I recently had a beautiful conversation following up with Anna Marie about the painting, but when I tried to describe how I felt about it, words simply fell short. All I could do is weep! In that moment I realized that
the painting said what words could not!
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“It’s more about the process of painting it than it is the final outcome.”
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As Georges Braque put it;
“Art is a wound turned into light.”
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🩷💛🧡
Art is so healing. We find ourselves in art, we lose ourselves to it.
“Art is not always about pretty things."
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"It’s about who we are, what happened to us and how our lives are affected.” -Elizabeth Broque
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“Art is like therapy; what comes up is what comes up. It may be dark, but that’s what comes up. You may want to keep some of it in a drawer… but never judge it.” -Nick Bantock
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As artists, hobbyists, and even dabbling artists, my hope is that we can remember as we create; WHY we create, and that sometimes it's so much more than just making pretty pictures. Sometimes you just need to make some UGLY ART!
🩷💛🧡
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*Story shared with permission. Anna Marie Steffenson’s body of work focuses on the healing, restorative power of the arts while emphasizing the choice to channel the trauma of war and into beauty...READ MORE HERE!
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