Painting from sadness
- suebrightly
- Feb 6, 2024
- 1 min read
Updated: Feb 11, 2024
Roadkill bothers me more than most people I guess. And the roadsides here in the northeast are tragic testaments to a silent conflict between modern human life and our wild relatives. Bodies everywhere it seems - deer, possums, raccoons, skunks, squirrels, birds. "Poor little things," we might think as we whizz past them in our hard shiny cars. Collateral damage.
Last summer as I was whizzing along the highway I passed a dead deer, its neck in the most graceful arc, breathtakingly beautiful even in death. The image was seared into my mind. Driving along, I thought about how I might paint these roadside martyrs. Because what else can I do? This helplessness and sadness that I feel. I had a few sketches, but nothing was really clicking.
Then October 7, the horrors in Israel and Palestine. All I see are bodies of innocents. Collateral damage. And that feeling of helplessness and sadness. And so I painted.
I'm calling it "Our Lady of Sorrows."
I can't help but cry every time I see a dead creature in the road. I wonder why people can't just slow down? Would they care if they realized that each of those creatures is probably in relationship to someone else....a partner, babies, young ones who are waiting for them to return to nurture and love them? Perhaps they were returning with some food? I'm sad that humans can't be more thoughtful and cautious. Thank you for your beautiful works of art and for respecting and paying homage to these loved ones.