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To live and enjoy every day to its fullest, use my gifts to help others, I travel to wherever passion finds me.

What Will She Paint?

So many friends I met here...!

Monday, January 18, 2010

BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER - SIMON AND GARFUNKEL


 
© Oil, St.Germain

This is a (purposefully) BLURRY rendition of the last of my 
Sunday paintings, which I did in December. 
Still in 2009, I experienced the choppy waters myself. 
And I am still recuperating from it, as some of you 
may go through comparable situations or feelings. 
There are good as well as difficult things about change.

As you see, this painting is a composite of several things. Some general observations about this painting are: the eye, the bridge, and the choppy waters. 
Even though I am not Jewish, for the last few years I have  been holding to the Jewish calender too, because it makes much more sense in my own life. 

Their New Year is around the end of Sept. and beginning of Oct. and that's when the pot starts stirring, so to speak.
 This is the year  5770 -the year of Ayin -and one of it's many meanings is "eye."This "eye" is not to be confused with the eye of the Masons on the dollar bill.  For me, the eye I painted is "God's eye", meaning the One who created the heavens and the earth. His eye who is watchful of what happens in the choppy waters.


Lately, for more than a week I found myself humming the song of Simon and Garfunkel "Bridge over troubled water." Boy, does it fit in this time or what? 

We may be very independent and careful, but sometimes we do need a bridge. When hubby was laid off suddenly in the beginning of summer, people from the photography class that he was taking,  jumped in immediately (no pun intended)and gave him work. 

When we needed several expensive essential  things to sell the (old) house and make the new one more livable, the businesses where he had worked with for years, told him he could pay whenever. I'm so thankful that they were a bridge, so we didn't drown financially.

You will see some sketches on ART NOTES of a few designs and how the painting came out in the end.

Our choppy 2009 waters also included filling in forms and more forms for Holland and getting them notarized 3 times, because hubby is getting "that age."  That took about half a year (I am not exaggerating!).

I have also sensed his watchful eye when we were given wisdom how to handle things when we had a real estate agent and a health insurance agent who were taking things way too easy (definitely choppy waters).


It's a comfort to me that nothing gets past His watchful eye! 

For details on the process and to see its true colors of this painting "Bridge over Troubled Water",  please hop over to ART NOTES. (click on top pic in the right column - thank you!)




18 comments:

The Weaver of Grass said...

Seems a very appropriate song Jeannette - you sound to be weathering the storm - and your painting is lovely.

Unknown said...

What a powerful painting Jeannette, and I love that you gave the mysterious eye a distinctly feminine look.

Glad that your hubby has work now!

Barry said...

Sorry to hear of your troubled waters.

I've always thought January 1st an odd time for the year to end.

rainfield61 said...

Bridge over troubled water, Simon and Garfunkel.

The post started off with such a nice song.

Zuzana said...

That is the best thing with art, we can express our emotions and get a release for the way we feel.
I think we all meet people that help us when we are most in need, I am sure your positive outlook on life attracts positive things as well.
*Bridge Over Troubled Water* is a beautiful compilation.
xo
Zuzana

Anonymous said...

Beautiful imagery ... I'm reminded how I spent a couple of years humming His Eye is on the Sparrow during 'dark days' of my own. Amazing how music can be healing ...
Hugs and blessings,

Kilauea Poetry said...

Interesting post and photo depiction. Lovely header as well. Choppy waters is apt and the song so fitting for the ups and downs of life- the only thing that brings depth of character to me. A friend of mine who passed away from cancer and its complications told me once "you can never have all your ducks lined up" ha,..how true! (especially in light of all this health care balony going on) Anyway, blessings and all my best to you Jeannette, Regina-

DawnTreader said...

Simon & Garfunkel are my favourites since my mid-teens and still, and I just love Bridge Over Troubled Water. For me too that is a song I often return to and especially when "weary, feeling small"...

I like your colour scheme in the finished painting.

Jeannette StG said...

Weaver,
Thanks Weaver, I feel this storm has made me stronger!

Jane,
Wow, you're a good observer (about the eye:) ). Very thankful for hubby's work -in some other states we might have survived without it, but not in California with costs of living are higher.

Barry,
Thank you, Barry - my troubled waters were a small bump in the road, compared to some others, who lost both their job and their house -and this post is to encourage them

Rainfield,
Some songs are eternal in their meaning and content, because they touch the human condition of so many...

Jeannette StG said...

Zuzanna,
these kind of paintings I have to admit are closer to my heart than the landscapes, for the first invoke feelings that need to be resolved (for a therapist that is my goal, LOL).

Happily Retired,
How true, music is healing, can be calming and smoothing the rough spots. Am glad that song helped you through those dark days.
Thank you, the colors are jarring (on purpose) for they represent jarring situations:)

Regina,
Sorry you had to lose your friend. When death is near, we often begin to see things more clearly. Thank you, the header is a photo of one of our trips to Big Bear (2 hrs. away we go to 9000 feet to see snow:) )

Monika,
There are certain songs who provide a "bridge" for us to go to the side we need to be on:). Great that we have music to help us in that!

Clytie said...

Beautiful - both the painting and the song. I'm glad you had so many bridges put over your stormy waters - as have I this past year. As has everyone.

I hope 2010 provides us all with less stormy, less choppy waters.

God bless you.

Anonymous said...

The world is a turbulent place because we humans make it so with our thoughts and how we perceive life and living. We can build bridges, but we can easily learn to swim or dive deep in the water to unseen currents that recycle water or spirit back into the visible surface. We humans are creative beings, and we can learn to shift focus and awareness and begin doing things outside of the box. Perhaps the water wouldn't be so troubled and turbulent if we our selves as a collective would stop stirring it up with our out of control emotions and the repression of our feelings. So like the Eye, we must see what we are doing. We must take responsibility and learn to see differently and to act differently to live in a new and different time and age. We create our problems and therefore we create the world that we live in. Lets take a higher and broader perspective and we may even learn to fly.

VioletSky said...

There's something about the foggyness of this picture that I find comforting - or attractive? - and I appreciate your whole interpretation of the waters, bridge and eye. I also find the Jewish New Year to be much more in line with the end and beginning of [life] than our arbitrary January one. I've never really paid much heed to the year, or it's meaning, though I think I will now.

Jeannette StG said...

Clytie,
It would be a scary world if we didn't have THE bridge in our life when things are out of control because of society changing!You had a difficult year behind you - my wish for you is that this new year may be easier as well as more productive on/for you!

Natural Moments,
You're a wise man! Unfortunately we do create our own problems, may be not only out of our irresponsibility, but the sheer fact that we as human beings sometimes make mistakes, and other times we cannot foresee the conseguences of our actions.

Sanna,
Do you realize that the foggyness is not on the painting? I only did it that way, so people could see the real colors -and also as a pun that we always do not see things clearly. But it could give a comforting message (something like, now I don't see things very clearly, but one time the "fog" will clear up).
Constantinopel did not do us a favor to change the beginning of the year to January, LOL.

VioletSky said...

yes... and I think I lke this version more. the other version feels too chaotic.

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Jeannette: May your waters calm down and you find a sea with a mirror surface to sail ahead.

Jeannette StG said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jeannette StG said...

Sanna,
Thank you! It's amazing what the right combination of colors and lines can do to ya;)

Tom,
Thank you -that is my wish too!
Thank you for the encouragement:)