Spinning Daydreams
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Connection and Vulnerability

5/21/2016

 
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Every time I see this painting, I see my hand in Hellon's.  Every week a group of us from our college would go to the nursing home to sing hymns, and I would sit next to Hellon's bed and hold her hand.  Her hand was soft, and her eyes were soft and blurred behind thick lenses.  

I never knew much about Hellon's life.  I knew she had a husband, and children. I knew that her husband visited every day, and I knew that she had worked in a textile factory.  I knew that she never could figure out exactly where the nursing home was in relation to her home, and that bothered her. And, I knew that she loved me.
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The year I had to stay out of college to work, I wrote Hellon every week.  Not deep things, not secrets, just breaths of prayers and the work I did and tales of the singing of birds.  She couldn't write back.

But that did not matter.  We touched each other deeply.


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There are lots of introverts out there that shine bright when they're on the internet.  The internet gives them a freedom of speech and thought and they sparkle in their interactions.  You'd think they were extroverts by their online manner.

I don't feel that freedom.  Words fail me.  I write to you about the singing of the birds and the blooming of the flowers, and breaths of prayers.   I want to be transparent and vulnerable, but I don't know how to do that .   It's not me.  I can't spill my life struggles out there to let you all read them. I can scarcely share the joys.  I have to give them shelter.
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But what I do is hold out my hand to you in my art. 

And you take it.  That means so much to me.

Some people think that the internet is not a place that people genuinely connect.  But that's not true.  When it comes to human interaction, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.   We look too hard, we analyze too deeply, when we think that this is not connection. 
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It took me more than half my life to learn to accept help when it has been offered to me, let alone ask for help.  It's not something that comes naturally to me, and it feels pretty vulnerable.

Asking for help to bring my vision for a big art piece to full fruition has been a stretching, growing experience.   But I have come to realize that asking for help is another way of connecting.  

Whether or not I get funded, knowing that my art has touched you is payment indeed.  So for every pledge, for every share, for every like,  for every encouraging comment I receive.  Thank you.  

And if you'd like to help me hold out my hand to the visitors of Art Prize, please visit my Kickstarter page.  It ends soon, and every little bit helps.  



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All original images and text © 2017 by Donna M. Buchanan.
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