Life's a Stitch

A little over a year ago we were living in our house in the rain forest, dreaming of finding our forever home. We zoned in on White Rock, a seaside community, a place we thought we could never afford. I researched what it had to offer as a community and something caught my eye – a course in Chinese brush painting. 

In our second year of retirement, it's all come together. We sold our house in North Vancouver and were able to find one in our desired location, somewhat affordable as it was "structurally deficient," in need of significant work. We still hope that the major renovation will come in on budget. Originally planning to move to a condo, we hope to able to live without association fees and those dreaded special assessments plus have the benefit of a secondary walk out apartment on the ground level.

The vision was complete, when this weekend I took a two day course in Chinese brush painting, offered through the local art guild that I was able to join, despite spending significant time on the waiting list. The art of brush painting takes years to master. It is a method of conveying, through a series of exacting brush strokes, an image from your head to rice paper. There are no photo references or pre-drawings, you develop your subject from within.

Scary stuff, this brush painting. There is no going back, no correcting nor improving upon what you've put on the paper. You only get one chance. What you paint is an impression of the object and a reflection of yourself. In consideration of the philosophy, so different from western thinking, I suppose this is me as a bird:

The most important lesson: there's no such thing as perfect. I like my little imperfect little me-bird.