Can I take a moment of your time to talk about this piece? This tiny corner of my art that I added as a last touch and after-thought?
I have been painting this piece for months. I was happy with how she was coming together, but I couldn’t find what I was trying to express in her. I had an idea and ran with it, yet I have been waiting this whole time for her to tell me what I was trying to convey.
The back right needed one last touch, I thought I would draw a mandala, but a mandala seemed too much. It would take away and overpower her. Then I saw the pattern in the watercolour and thought just some simple stars would do.
My stars followed the lines and textures. Then I saw they were falling. Shining strong but falling to the ground. The ground where a fairytale princess was adorned in beauty. A ground where she was stripped naked. A ground where she sat comfortably in the reality of what life actually is. A ground where that reality was smeared and dried on her very skin. She looks out at me with indifference to this, not shock. This is not new, she has been here a long time. Perhaps too long. But the world around her is the stuff of fairytales none the less.
And I cried. I cried when I realised what I had painted, who I had painted. Now I understand why she took me so long to paint. She is me, she is growing up. She is acceptance.