Lisa Thorpe

Deep Shadows and Bright Sun

 

I painted this daffodil and shadows painting this weekend. The sun was roiling with the big thunderclouds and at the moment when the sun was winning its wrestling match with the billowing grey it seemed impossibly bright. Somehow the contrast and constant shifting from clouds to sun made the light even brighter the dark shadows richer and deeper. And so this painting is as much about the richness of the reaching shadows as it is the sunny daffodils smiling above. And so it seemed these past few weeks as we waited to hear about whether our son would receive a big scholarship he had applied for that would allow him to go to University Pennsylvania on a four year full ride. The waiting was so hard for him and all of us, we knew it would be settled within a few weeks but my emotions were like the wrestling weather, sunny and optimistic one day then gloomy and misty the next. Big life changes are like that – the uncertainty is always the hardest, the gloomy misty places push us to look inward, which is good for a time- useful – but too long and it’s disorienting. So when decisions are made, like “you got the scholarship, you’re going to Penn”- then the bright flash of sun is blinding and illuminating at the same time. So in our house we are enjoying the bright sun of certainty now and admiring the deep rich shadows cast when the grey mist blows away with the dark rain clouds. And so the daffodils and shadows represent the assurance of good things to come – of a road revealed. To you my dear reader take good courage with the fog and clouds in your life and be ready to greet the bright sun when it comes.