Lea’s paintings, moving through pain

When Lea (my best friend, and Nat and Owen’s godmother, in case you’re new here) moved out of our house a few weeks before Owen disappeared, she left him a canvas she had already painted, and told him to paint over it.  The two of them went out to the barn one afternoon, she gave him a bunch of her art supplies, and they set up her former studio for him. 

Owen had dabbled in acrylics over the years, and she had always encouraged him to continue.  The name of the painting she left him is “Jacob’s Ladder” and she said it wasn’t much her style, but thought it was a good place for him to continue, by painting over it. 

Lea paints over a lot of her original canvasses.  She can explain this so much better than I, but there’s a process to her paintings that starts with whatever emotion(s) she’s working through, then she paints over that piece with something symbolic, then a final representation will come out that assimilates and transcends the former versions.  Each painting has a story, and that’s just as much a part of the art as the paint itself. 

Jacob’s Ladder is in our dining room now.  We like it just the way it is.  It’s one of the reminders of all the things Owen was going to do, had he gotten to take his next steps. 

One or two days after Owen’s memorial service, Lea, Karma, and I took some red roses given to me by one of Owen’s young lady friends, out to the studio.  We retrieved all the supplies, cried, and examined the things the two of them had posted on the walls.  Lea found a can of silver spray paint in one of the boxes, and shook it for so long, I thought it was just an exercise in destroying the silence.

On one wall, someone, I don’t know if it was Lea or Owen, had put up some sticky cut-out letters that said, “Luv Big” and “W8 4 D1″.   Owen spent much of his last 5 years waiting for that special girl that was going to make the difference, “the one”.  He had had several girlfriends, all of whom made differences in his life, and all of whom meant a great deal to him, each in their unique and beautiful ways. 

In one of his journals, he wrote several times, “I want to meet the girl that will make me cut my hair.”  This is an old journal, before he decided on the dreadlocks when he was 16, and his hair was quite long.  He couldn’t decide between a haircut and the dreadlocks for the longest time.  Then one night he said he hadn’t met the girl, so he was going for the dreads. 

He looked up how to create dreadlocks on the internet, and told Dave and I we had to help him because he couldn’t reach the back of his head the way we could.  I started the process, and Dave ended up doing most of the work.  Dreadlocks are not easy to make. 

For about a week, Owen went about his daily life with just the front and the sides done, while we worked together to cover his whole head in a hairstyle we couldn’t imagine him wanting.  But, he did, and we worked, and he was awesome in this new look of his.  He tied beads and strings into the dreads, and found a new confidence that was so very freakin’ cool.

So, there we were in the barn, Lea, Karma, and I, and Lea finally got up from the floor with the can of silver paint.  She took one of the red roses and stuck it to the wall with a push pin, next to the sticky letters, and painted a big heart around the rose and “Luv Big” and “W8 4 D1″.  We hung one more rose in the studio on another wall, and dropped the remaining flowers throughout the backyard on our way back into the house.  This was all part of Owen’s “recycling life” conversation, although none of us had a need to say it out loud.

A couple of weeks ago, I went out to the barn and took a picture of the silver heart with the dried rose in the middle.  You can clearly see the cut-out phrases in the photo.  I can see why Lea paints over her paintings, as the process of dealing with emotions sometimes becomes layers, and the layers change slightly with each new coat.

I’m experiencing Owen’s loss in layers, and I don’t know what each new layer will look like.  I only know once I get there - just like Lea’s paintings, and Owen’s hair.  Sometimes, moving through pain is like a can of silver spray paint, or hair that is longer than you want.  You don’t know exactly what you’re gonna do with it until it’s there for you and others to see. 

Lea’s website:  http://leakelley.com 

~ by Linda on August 27, 2007.