The First Days of Spring, Salvador Dalí
I was surprised to be facing my favorite kind of day a few weeks ago as I stepped outside to take my morning walk. It was a warm day--the very first warm day of the year. The realization of it put a ginormous smile on my face and caused me to do a little shimmy as I made my way down the street. I was headed to the nearby creek blasting Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles feeling like the main character of some movie. At this moment, something very powerful had struck me---a sort of rush that I could only faintly recall. I couldn’t quite fathom why it was that I was getting so excited, but I knew that it was making me feel really good and I liked it.
Right as I entered the trail that would lead me to the creek, I was wrapped into the welcoming embrace of the trees that towered over me. They decorated my hair with flowers--pretty pink ones that fell from their arms as the warm breeze ran through them. With that breeze also roamed an amazing fragrance, one I wish I could just squeeze into a bottle to act as my next perfume. I noticed the sun making its way through the trees from the clear blue sky up above. They were spotlights to the stars of the show--these vibrant and fresh blooming flowers that were growing out from the grass beneath me. Is it spring already?! I thought. Coincidentally, I checked my phone to read that it was March 21st, which marked the first day of spring on the 2021 calendar.
Spring--a season that I have come to really love now that I have grown to understand myself as an artist. That said, I have learned just what amazing things I am capable of doing with the observations I make from the natural world surrounding me. I know now, that spring is nature's details amplified and that my being able to captivate those details is what allows me to contribute my own individual interpretation of it. So, around this time of the year, I am usually opening up the fresh cans of paint that will allow me to do so. These are cans of opportunity. It's as if I am walking into a room that has been spring cleaned out of all clutter and stored up negative emotion and replaced with open-mindedness and inspiration. A room that has been washed away of winter's greys and painted a fresh coat of yellow instead.
I love this time of the year because I am able to do things like sitting myself by a creek and tune into my senses. They’ll tell me that today, on the first day of spring, the sunlight is gleaming in a way that it was not yesterday. Yesterday, the flowers had not bloomed and their colors were not nearly as vibrant. Once yesterday had turned into today, I was left itching to get my hands on the closest art material that would allow me to illustrate every idea that was generating in my head as a result of it, ideas that I am convinced would not have occurred to me before.
On my way home from my walk that day, I realized just what had made me feel a rush that intense. I realized that I hadn’t greeted this kind of day for a really long time. Last year due to the pandemic, spring got canceled. I was told to remain inside and rather than experience the season to its fullest extent. Instead, I was instructed to admire from afar, more particularly--from my bedroom window. At this time I felt trapped, far away from accessing anything close to what I had on this day. Now that the access was mine and I stepped into the spring just to submerge myself in it, I felt more alive than ever. And for that, I am grateful. I can see the light as we reach the end of the tunnel now and as this new energy up in the air arises. What we must do as artists this season, is gather this essence that spring brings and use it to fill up our blank pages!