Nearly every morning late last winter and then in spring I got up early to walk around the 1/4 mile of trails that surround our house.  I needed the exercise for my pregnant self and spent time praying, talking to God, and watching each little bit of nature slowly come alive.  Sometime around June I think, I started feeling God calling me to paint again.  It’s been years, at least 9 since I’ve seriously painted.   I actually had kind of let go of a lot of that part of me.  I’ve been busy the last 6 years with designing  jewelry, web design and marketing for said jewelry, and other little whims along the way that fulfilled my need to create.  I always had an odd relationship with ART (painting) anyway.  The approval thing always got to me, the I’m not good enoughs, the where to start, what to start, oh lots of human sorts of stuff.  So really I wasn’t too keen on the thought of painting again.  I just figured “Why?”.  But I’m on a path to listening to the whisperings of God when I hear them, so I knew I needed to be obedient and say yes.  I’m learning that God always has a better plan than anything I can come up with.  I bought some new paints, thought of starting small, and instead took a big old canvas of mine from college and painted over it.

Well it’s finished.  I started this painting of peonies from my garden almost 7 months ago, in the summer, when I was big and pregnant with ~O.

With 4 boys and a baby a month and a half away, really what was I thinking?  How would I finish something so large?   Instead of feeling overwhelmed, I approached it one morning at a time.  I would set my alarm for 5:30, well before anyone was up and stole maybe 1 1/2 hours to work on it.  When the boys woke I’d stop until the next day, or two.  I wasn’t able to get to it as much this fall besides on Saturday mornings for a couple hours, but bit by bit it came together.  I worked upstairs in my studio and when I was done for the morning I brought it downstairs and hung it in the living room here:

It would stay hung in the living room until the next time I got a chance to work on it.    So I pretty much finished the peonies yesterday and all that was left was to sign it.  I signed it LL with the new logo for Little Lisa Studios.  It works as Little Lisa or Lisa Laverty.

The biggest most exciting part about finishing this painting that has become such a part of my world is that I’m not keeping it.  It is marked for the world outside my home.  It may sound funny, but I never liked to sell my art work, I felt too close to it and selfishly wanted to keep it for myself.  Now the thought of someone else enjoying it is way better than any thought of my enjoyment.  So my plan is through Little Lisa Studios (which is not yet officially open, but getting there) I plan to create: 4 large scale paintings a year -more than likely inspired by the nature found out our front door here in Vermont- ALL to be sold.

I remember in college when I was painting vaginas and depictions of birth, and the deepest darkest parts of myself, my friend Kelly asked me why I didn’t paint something pretty.  I thought it was so trite, and thought “Why would I bother doing that?”  Well the moon isn’t always silver, and there is something to be said for the beautiful.   My deepest darkest, all that introspection I did for years didn’t really get me anywhere.  It got really old, and this ride with God, where I trust instead of dictate is, well more exciting than anything I can imagine.

So I think I’ll keep listening…

~Lisa