It seems like a good time to write about this piece. It's winter solstice, when we turn a corner and the darkness falls a little later, each day.
A few years ago, I spent some months working through a short-term injury that took over all my waking (and sleeping) hours. Pain can rule your life, and it did mine, for about 8 months. The thing that buoyed my spirits was a daily walk to the shoreline of Devils Lake.
Nature is my work's inspiration, but it can equally provide needed solace. In difficult times, when there are no answers to be found, nature is so often the balm for our injuries. Wild places, and sometimes wild creatures in the midst of a city, lift us out of the darkest times and suddenly it all becomes bearable again.
On a particularly low day, I walked through wind and spring rain to the lake, and wondered if this pain would ever get better. Reaching the neighborhood dock's end where it juts far into the water, I noticed the yellow pond lilies had breached the surface. All winter they had been lurking dormant beneath and suddenly, that day, their new growth was finding the light. The gray storm I had just walked through moved eastward to the Coast Range foothills and dramatically parted, letting the morning sun through. It was all I needed in that moment.
A new year lies in front of us. Today we celebrate the coming of light, and emerge from the darkness.
'Emerge'
a mosaic of stained glass, stone and smalti
36"w x 18"h