Trash. It’s everywhere. So why not enjoy it? For the past 7 years that’s exactly what I’ve been doing…
Here a lonely, wind-blown 8 of clubs, stuck under a bush, has the high honor of being my very first painted portrait of trash. The IG photo I painted from dates back to October 6, 2015; my initial typing of the hashtag #interestingtrash. If you click the link today you will find there are 399 posts tagged #interestingtrash. More than half of them are mine.
In the time following the birth of my twin girls in August of 2015, I never missed a day of walking. We lived in El Paso, Texas. I would push them in a double-stroller, no matter the weather. It was the simplest way to get them to nap. That daily ritual brought me great joy for many reasons; but none was so great as the days I would find ridiculous things on the sidewalk. Remember that nail polish spill? Remember that five dollar bill? Remember the lighter in the tree? The lighter was my first find after we moved to Colorado.
The twins got bigger and required less walking. Their little brother was born. Things have gotten more complicated and the #interestingtrash has slowed a bit. Seasons bring change. Now I have kids in school. I don’t have to take so many long walks. I paint more, and I’ve painted my first piece of trash.
The Eight of Clubs, is a b-side. I used the palette from The Outback to paint it. Here you can compare the two. The acrylic paint on both pieces is the same, but used in different quantities. For The Outback I used my spray paint stencil technique for the snow and sky. In Eight of Clubs I used a house paint stencil for the plant. No matter the medium, nestling a stenciled area in an otherwise polished composition brings a wonderful energy to a finished work.
It’s like this…
Things that are in contrast to one another, forced to share a context, can do a lot to improve the state of one another. You don’t have to walk through life looking at everything through lenses of gratitude, but once in a while it does a body good. That’s all I’m saying.
Thanks for reading. Have a great day.
