Today I've been packing my car for the show, deciding what to bring and what to leave behind. I've decided to bring along three of the little paintings on panels (8"x10" ish) that I've been working on periodically.
I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed working on these, since I generally prefer working large. I realized how much I love painting without the texture of the canvas to distract me – which it does, at this size.
The meteorologists are all promising rain (though no one is mentioning radiation from Japan). My focus has been on the tasks in front of me, but my thoughts keep going to all the people who are suffering in Japan as a result of the earthquake, the tsunami, and now, radiation from the nuclear power plant.
When I was about eighteen, my family hosted two women in their mid-to-late twenties from Japan. They stayed with us for about a week as part of a trip organized through the YMCA. One of the women had to take some kind of medicine regularly. We learned that she had been born in Hiroshima after the war, and we were told she might never marry. Children born in the areas affected by the bombs were, as adults, avoided as potential mates.
I think about her... and about the children, alive today and yet to be born, and I wish my poor prayers could make things better for them.
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