Beside You

The Curate and I like to buy pieces of artwork by local artists and the rule usually is that we both have to react in some way to what we are going to buy. If it doesn't 'speak' to one of us - then we don't buy it! This was the first painting that I have bought without consulting The Curate. I bought it when our move to the North coast was confirmed and The Curate had just resigned his full time job, having completed his training for ministry. I think I was reacting to his resignation. I was alarmed by the bland house we were expected to move to, the unknown area we were expected to move to and the prospect of  being tied to The Church. We usually buy artwork together but I found this painting just spoke to me - it offered the combination of pure joy and chaos. It lifted my spirits out of the chaos I was feeling at the time. It made me smile and I knew it had to come with us to the North Coast and be part of our new life. 

After I said I was going to buy it, I found out that the painting was entitled ' Beside You'. This just confirmed that this painting was meant for The Curate and I. I knew exactly where it was going to hang in our new house and I have loved watching how people respond to it. This photo doesn't do it justice because it is in oil and has glitter and metallic paints in it. It looks different depending on the light. Some people politely ask if I painted it (I wish I had!). It has such a feeling of pure joy and spontaneity. The paint is flicked and splattered, the colours and shapes are bold and confusing..... but it makes me smile. Children immediately identify with it and love it. Love it or hate it - my painting gets a reaction out of most people!

A while ago, we visited Yvonne Coomber in her studio, during Devon open studios where we were made so welcome and it is lovely knowing where our painting came from. She says this about her work:-
 
'I am fascinated by chaos and order existing simultaneously and the easy harmony that occurs in the natural world between these two forces. Also the relationship between fragility and strength. My canvas becomes a visual response to these elemental energies and polarities discovered within the environment and myself.

My work is a celebration of the joy and ultimate purity of the human spirit and embraces all that is magical: the unseen is as relevant as the seen in the finished piece.' Yvonne Coomber

'Beside You' will come to the next house, which is very different to the house we are in now, and there will be a place to hang it.  Life is not so chaotic,  I am more certain about the path The Curate has chosen to take and I want to be beside him.  And I am certain we are not alone on our journey.