Standing in front of the bare critique easel, I haltingly told my story. Super bowl Sunday 2/4/18 found me in a frantic drive from Brooklyn to the north shore of Long Island after getting a call from my neighbor “Your house is on fire.”

Read about the start of my fire adventures here 

My first “public” discussion of the fire in my studio and home was one week after the fire. My home and studio unlivable, my entire life’s work as an abstract painter smoke exposed, I was very raw.

But I would not miss my painting class with my dear “Stan Clan” art pals and 93-year-old Stan Brodsky. 

For the first time since I began studying with Stan in 2013, I felt lonely with no cumbersomely large canvas of new work to lovingly schlep to face the dreaded critique easel.

More strongly, I felt naked inside with the loss of creation.

I had painted voraciously in my dark cold smoke infused studio the days after the fire. But now as I started to absorb the magnitude of art loss, I uttered the words I never thought I would say. “I never want to paint again.” I did not know I had one, but my artist’s heart was broken.

There was stunned silence as I told my tale. I looked into the faces of my precious colleagues and saw the deep grief I felt echoing in their faces. These moments of shared sadness were healing as I found a space to hold some of what felt unbearable.

But then there was a shift and voices rang out. What if you used soot as a medium? What if you incorporate the damage into the original painting? What if the smell of smoke was part of the painting? What if….

This is the power of art.

Artists create with paint, pens, clay, glass ….YES…but we also create with fire, smoke, and water. We create with what is in front of us. What others deem worthy of destruction, we see materials to build upon. We know the hope of creation.

I have gotten the same response from just about every artist I have talked to.

First, artists cry with you, cry with our world. Then we create. This is our gift to the world. We transmute.

I give thanks to the artists of the world who live and breathe to hold the space of our spirits and to create from ashes.