Dingwall. Yeah, yeah, it's a funny sounding name. The East Coast has a lot of those!
Just so you know, Dingwall gets its name from the Old Norse words þing (parliament or assembly) and völlr (field), meaning "field of the assembly" or "parliament field". So there, it actually sounds pretty classy.
Anyway, I was not there for a parliamentary assembly. I was there to attend a funeral, which made the time I spent there fairly heavy. As I often do when faced with a sad event, I paint. I often heal through painting, release emotion through paint, and even just use it as a distraction from time to time. When I say I need to paint, this is what I mean.
One stormy afternoon I took my small easel out on the deck of my father's home and decided to paint these rocks. I often paint massive mountains, sweeping fields, or blooming clouds. There's a scale to these subjects that is always humbling and I'm typically drawn to that. On this day, however, I found myself drawn to the smaller things. My eye was caught by the way algae dangled off a cluster of stones, clinging on as the ocean tugged at it again and again. My attention was taken by the way light uniformly lit the rock face, warming everything equally. And, at least on that day, the way the colour of the water matched the grey of the sky. It was a heavy day. And it was as if nature felt it too.
At the same time, look at those rocks! Those aren't sad rocks. They're fiery and full of energy. They're red with life, and the shadows they keep are all tucked away beneath them. What at first felt like a dreary scene, began to shift as the sun broke through the clouds. I was left with a scene I scrambled to capture before it left me.
And I, in turn, left the painting feeling much better. That's usually how it works :)
