This painting had unusual starting point. My first and only painting I have painted from a sketch that was made in Photoshop, a collage of images. I often use photos for reference but I still normally draw my sketches by hand.

The bird(s) is a bird that flew to my window and was disoriented for a while in my balcony and I sat with it making sure it was fine, and of course took pictures before it flew away. Since how often do you get so close to birds. The color changed in the process. And the flower got changed too. In the sketch it was a rose, but it got changed into a waterlily I photographed in local botanical garden. Color is switched to negative. The hand is my hand in a mudra.

This is also my only painting I have painted on a board. I tinkered it myself from mdf board and a wooden frame I sawed, nailed and glued in to the back. I like to tinker with hand tools. And ready made quality boards cost a mf. I will buy a proper board for painting some day, I found a good semi local manufacturer, but first it’s better to try out if board is even something I want to work with. And I do like to tinker, just wish the quality was more refined thats all. The board is primed with rabbit glue gesso, because I paint with egg tempera. (Which is pigments with egg yolk). I always make my canvases from scratch, with rabbit glue gesso. I could not paint onto a plastic like acrylic. I like my materials natural and compostable, and the material for the glue is a byproduct so no animals are killed for the glue alone.

Third unsual thing is that I played around with inks in the beginning so it has small parts that are painted with ink. Gold leaf and colored pencils are something I always use in my paintings, also in this one. I usually call my paintings mixed media paintings for that reason.

I like the rough spots, and that I was able to leave some of the unpolished bits, and play around more than usual. It makes the process very enjoyable when you give yourself permission to try even the silliest ideas.

I really struggled to find the final puzzle pieces. I could’t make sense what the flying balls were because they just wouldn’t... But towards the end when everything else was readyish, I had a moment, a click in my brain if you will, of them connecting to the small bubbles rising from the lily. I understood why I had painted the dots into the small ones. It was of course frog spawn. (Hence the title was then all clear.) Frog is another symbol for transformation, like butterfly. It has phases.

So the big bubbles were like awareness rising from the transformation the spawn represents, as does the composition itself (in hindsight).

Or watchers, witnesses, guides. Whatever. Decide for yourself. Spirits watching bog witch spawning from the depths of black swamp.

Parable, analogy to buddhist analogy of lotus rising from the muddy water.

It’s quite a dark painting. Mind you I was painting this after been glued to my phone watching a livestream of genocide for 2 years so the painting could have also ended up just black entirely.

Considering the backdrop it’s actually kinda positive painting.

There has to be a conscious effort to not let darkness win. But transform it into awareness. It's a doorway.

The catalyst might be a nightmare, but the change has to be intentional decision to go to the other side with integrity. Not hate, or be destroyed by it. Otherwice they’ve won. You failed. You can’t become them, whatever the force is that is washing you over with despair.

Even though hate has certainly been a familiar companion during these last few years, you have to consciously flip it to something more constructive or it will only consume you. And strengthen the very thing you’re against.

This painting took 3 years to finish.

Painting doesn’t take that long. I start something new, maybe hit a wall or pause and then they just lay around for years, unfinished, taking space. Until I get frustarated moving them around in my small quarters and get tired of them looking all dodgy and start working on them again.

I don’t have a studio, so every unfinished painting, especially the larger ones, are visible in my main livingspace (that is half studiospace) and I have to look at them everyday.

Starting to paint again was bit of a struggle. I knew I could finish the painting obviously, and make it work, because I’ve painted before, and I know desperation is part of the process, but every time it felt so laborious I almost gave up. I stalled and complained and had moments where I actually felt like just trashing ALL my unfinished paintings so I could start something entirely new.

I’m relieved it’s finished. Another reason to trust myself and the process. And continue working. It’s all the effort that you have already put in it that feels too valuable to be trashed. Respecting what already is. Maybe there is an idea there somewhere. Just dig it up.

Or just enjoy painting fluffy fox ears.

There were many sweet moments too in painting and especially making new discoveries and applying new ideas is what makes the process so compelling.

I have another unfinished painting from 2021, and then two paintings that already have been in an exhibition at some point, but both have been deconstructed back to painting process because I just wasn’t happy with them. They needed more time.

I’m not allowed to start a new painting until these 3 are finished. But of course I already have a new one in the coming, since self discipline isn’t my forte. In my defence it’s totally different. It’s a japanese hybrid. Paper primed with glue to a board. A new technique. So it doesn’t count, right.

It’s been several years actually since I finished a painting. The last one was 2021. So it’s been a long time since I’ve painted with a proper effort. Back then I had an exhibition I had to prepare for. Now I’m painting for the joy of it. And because I want to have even once in my lifetime NO unfinished paintings demanding my attention in the back of my head.

I only have those 4 paintings plus 2 new unfinished etchings, a drawing that I’m sketching every now and then, and all kinds of ideas for turning my ecoprints into magical devices.

So. Back of my head is full.

Disclaimer: I think artists analyzing their own paintings seems to be in fact forbidden, but I’ve always liked to do it. The joy of not following rules. I think the story or the meaning is as important as the painting. And it’s the most interesting thing to find out what it is. So I’m deliberately leaving the mystique out. One big reason for this is I never get to talk about my paintings with anyone. Having cfs, being introverted, not having artists in my tiny social circle etc. And now that I’m in fact forbidden to have exhibitions where I could possibly discuss art related stuff. Even though I usually didn’t take part in openings and such anyway so.. what ever the reason, I’ve never really talked about my art content/meaning-wise with others and I’m used to writing about it into the void.

Besides making etchings, I paint with pigments, draw, sometimes even digital and make ecoprints.

I feel like I have finally landed on something important.

Getting closer to half a century milestone I finally have started to internalise what commonly repeated phrases actually mean. With the meaning really sinking in to a layer of my brain from where the realisation leads to changed behaviour.

What natural flow is. What does it mean to love what you do.

And such.

After realising how far my life had evolved from natural, following the socialisation into western capitalist mindset, in a society where human culture is merely consumerism, and the ethos of modernity really squeezing the life out and replacing it with a machine that devours everything. And sacrifices everything.

This transformation wouldn’t had happened without struggles that forced me to change. Without which I would perhaps never experienced the present moment. Felt connection. Connection to my being. To life.

I didn’t even know what I was missing.

I have closed all my previous online sites I used to promote my art with. Due chronic illness I’ve lost big part of my physical ability to function and work, and on top of that my government makes it impossible for unemployed creatives like myself to keep practising their skills and improve their chances to ever get back to work.

The alternative is continue making art in secret. & s l o w l y. Doing art and sharing it just for the sake of it. Existing.

Ridding yourself from the ways you were trying to fit and hang on to the machine. Society.

And so I have disappeared entirely from the world of art, except for the artwork that already exists in people homes.

I should feel enraged maybe. 13 y long investment of energy, time, money and effort to build a modest presence in local artworld vanished in thin air. But I feel liberated instead. I trust theres a reason, and wisdom why things happen the way they do, and that it will lead to right destination. Whatever it is. Surrendering to the flow of life. Maybe the first time in my life.

Writing about art life without in any way benefitting from it, besides loving the act and possibility of connection. I have nothing to sell.

I feel so much gratitude for the gifts and abundance life gives you for free. I have struggled almost my whole life with scarcity and I believe the longterm stress over money has in its part affected my health.

In the end you realise so much is already here. You don’t need to try and struggle so hard. Or at all.

Or hang on to things that arent meant for you.

Just accept what is and do with what you got and don’t worry about what you don’t. It’s what it is. For a reason.

The image we hold in our head what is acceptable life and lifestyle is painted by the sellers of things. Not by somebody who knows life.

There are monks after all, who have nothing but a rise bowl and a robe, maybe sandals, and they chose their path willingly. To go door to door for a meal. The climate I live in doesn’t support the sandal-robe lifestyle but its a mindset worth exploring. Trust in life.

At the moment I’m living through one of the most insecure times of my life. In addition to a prolonged illness that does not allow me to even dream of a life I want anymore, or change. I have to want the life that I have. With all its struggles. Yet I’m probably the happiest I’ve ever been. Surrendering to life, of what is.

I welcome everyone feeling inspired to follow. I think this shift of consciousness is collective experience.

Towards returning to a more natural life.

Simple, slow, connected, present

This image is from one of my bike arounds to collect plants for my ecoprints. A late summer night. Boundary between me and mom nature getting thin.

Making ecoprints has been a major accelerator and catalyst to shift my art making process into following its natural course.