In between making sale placards yesterday for my pop-up sale, I tacked up a fresh claybord to splash acrylic paints on while the signs dried. I have off-and-on relationships with smaller boards (12 x 12 is my fave) so I was nicely & unexpectedly surprised to enjoy painting this one. It’s really scratched up — I kept adding layers of paint and scratching them up and then adding more color. Since most of us feel scraped up and scarred after this astonishingly challenging year, it felt right to get a bit violent with the edge of my palette knife; we’ve all scrambled through the bramble patch and are cut up and bleeding. Eons ago a beloved therapist comforted me as I struggled to believe I would ever be whole after surviving a painful childhood. He said that yes, your wounds heal into scars that become part of a beautiful tapestry. I loved that image. An all-American creation, sturdy, imperfect, complete.

8″ x 8″ acrylic, crayon, pencil on claybord = $85