Going, Going, Gone
But, where did they go?
I had the oddest experience last weekend that I’m compelled to share—a bit of a saga.
After almost four long years (11/11/2020 was the date I moved here), I finally found someone to take on the task I didn’t have the driving bandwidth for - to journey to my storage unit in Jersey City and bring back the contents.
All of my paintings and a few boxes of random items were stored there. Christmas ornaments (some of them well over one hundred years old), photographs, my Pink typewriter, a big box of new children’s books, and other miscellaneous things.
I had fretted for months, then years, about what to do. The storage unit rent kept rising, and I hesitated whether I wanted the old paintings living here. I’ve always liked working on a large scale, and these pieces are large and heavy. Many of them are like big pages from my journal. Personal and from a very tumultuous time in my life.
But, when the offer came to retrieve them for me, I said yes. Just the day before, I had an astrology reading with Lynnette Duncan. I mentioned my reluctance to bring the paintings back and how, if the unit were to burn down, I probably would be okay.
Seriously, Barbara. Mind your words.
On Sunday, my helper returned with the van and unloaded the paintings. The day before, I’d been thinking about three paintings that I was excited to see. Paintings that had great significance in my life. When my art had come alive again and wasn’t so dark.
But, when the van stood empty, those same three paintings were missing. My mind started to race. “How could this be?”
We considered the possibility that they might have been left in the building, near the elevator where he was loading them. But a phone call to the storage facility cleared that up - they even checked the security cameras and confirmed that nothing had been left behind.
Another friend who generously went into my unit last year, took inventory, and boxed up random items told me those paintings had never been in the unit. This person has known me for many years, worked with me, saw those paintings hanging on my walls, and has a memory like an elephant.
And then, my mind drifted back to moving day. I was so stressed and exhausted that I couldn’t think straight. I thought I had nowhere to store my paintings in this little house, so I gave the key to a young maintenance man in my building and paid him to take the remaining paintings from my apartment to the storage unit across the street. I asked him to return the key to one of my neighbors.
He never returned the key or answered any of my phone calls or messages. I think I chalked it up to him, perhaps losing the key, and didn’t want to tell me. This was four years ago, after all.
I called my former neighbor in Jersey City, who said the young man had been fired a few years ago and suggested that perhaps he hadn’t wanted to be bothered lugging the heavy work across the street to storage and maybe tossed them in the dumpster.
I’ll never know.
This whole experience has seemed surreal. My first reaction was that they’re just things, and it’s not important. That was my mindset all day. I had just spent an entire week thinking about the artists affected by Hurricane Helene, who had lost their studios and all of their artwork during the hurricane. And complaining about these three paintings in light of their misfortune seemed irrelevant.
But, as I’m typing this, I stop myself to take a dose of self-love. I’m always telling others to stop comparing their hurts, misfortunes, or worries with other people’s. We will never win at that game - someone will always have it worse than we do.
I noticed myself going into a bit of self-blame for not thinking all this through when I moved.
More self-love is needed.
I felt this enormous, heavy pain in my chest all day. And then, after sharing what had happened with two of my friends, both artists, what they said broke me open.
I cried, and I cried. I have not cried like that in a long time. It cracked open that heavy pain, undoubtedly grief, and helped me to let it go.
The next day, I felt much lighter and grateful that I could move through the sadness, and it hadn’t lingered.
Missing Painting #1 is titled “Medicine for My City Lungs.” I painted it in 2018, one of a series of large paintings I did on recycled cardboard. They hung in the lobby of our building for a few months.
I love that painting. It was a complete departure from my other work, and it reminded me that my goal was to move out of the city to somewhere with lots and lots of trees.
The other day, I walked through the woods to visit Gone-Away Pond (she always makes me feel better) while deeply breathing in the forest air. I had an a-ha moment that I didn’t need the “Medicine for My City Lungs” painting anymore. I am bathed in this medicine every single day now.
Painting #2 is titled “I Had a Happy Childhood.”
It’s all about growing up in Detroit. Our family of six lived in a humble little one-story house. Looking back now, I realize how little we probably had, but I never felt it, thanks to my mom and dad.
We lived on a tree-lined street teeming with children and spent probably more time growing up outside than inside. That’s a good thing.
Anyway, this was (is?) a happy painting filled with my memories. I was excited to see her again.
When I told my friend Amanda, who had helped me process this little glitch of the missing paintings, that “Happy Childhood” was missing, she said she had shared a recent post I made on Instagram about returning to get the paintings.
Of all the images to choose from in my post, she had shared the “Happy Childhood” one and had this to say:
When I study Barbara’s work, I am struck by the deep childlike playfulness that comes from having lived decades of life and somehow holding onto the often elusive spark of joy while offering deep contemplation.
Gosh, Amanda. Thank you, my friend!
I last showed “I Had a Happy Childhood” in 2019 during our annual Jersey City Art Studio Tour. I’m looking at this photo and want to straighten the two paintings! :)
Missing painting No. 3 is titled “Anticipation.”
I’ve saved the best for last, in my opinion. This was a painting that I never would have sold, and I was excited to see it because I thought it might give off a big spark of inspiration and get me painting again.
I don’t know what made me look at my Substack Section named “The Artist,” but I just clicked over there and noticed I only had three posts about being an artist. That seems very telling to me.
And then I saw that the first one I’d written had a photo of a detail of “Anticipation.” You can’t make this stuff up. I think I say that a lot, don’t I? So, I’m just going to share all about that painting that lit a fire under me and got me working again.
Why did this happen, and what did it mean? Painting #3 is over 20 years old! Seems like it was time for some closure. There have been no more tears, and I am glad to have moved through whatever it was with relative ease. I’m sure I’ll still have thoughts of “Where did they go?” but gone is the angst about them.
Yesterday was a whopper of a full moon in Aries, and astrologer Lynnette Duncan had this to say to all of us:
This full moon is conjunct Chiron and is offering closure and completion…you’re moving out of a space where all you’ve done is processed trauma. A constant state of “healing” has ended.
You’re done with that perspective and focus.
It now is an awareness of integration and rootedness and less of the subconscious interference.
Does anyone else relate to that?
The icing on my cake regarding this experience, and I think my gift for letting go and moving through this little saga with a bit of Grace, was a whopper of a gift from Mother Nature a few days after the missing paintings incident, as I will forever call it. :)
Guess what? It’s so jaw-dropping that I will save it for my next post!
Much Love,
Barbara
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Very much looking forward to you sharing about the gift that Mother Nature has brought you!
And yes on the full moon wrapping up the healing phase! Please and thank you!
If I had those paintings in my possession, I’d be bummed to not have them back too. In the theatre world, we’re very used to saying goodbye to our creations. The weekend after a long run show closes, I totally get the morbs. We call it “the post show blues” but it’s a light hearted name for a deep melancholia that often turns us theatre ppl into alcoholics. 😂 I hope those paintings are gracing the walls of a place that has the eyeballs that need to see it and be moved by it. I bet that’s exactly what’s happened.
Say hi to the pond for me. Hugs to you, dear heart!
Such a BIG letting go! It seems a large chunk of experience was tied up with each of those paintings. It's funny how the Universe works sometimes - all is perfectly imperfect! I love the trees, and how now you have the actual trees, all around you, every day.
My letting-go's have happened in the dream state. Old loves, old angers and resentments in dream narratives, wiped away by the time I try to write about them in my journal, all emotional entanglement dissolved.
Its been a long road, that looks so much clearer up ahead!