Springtime on the Salt Marsh

By Carrie Jacobson

For weeks now, I’ve been pushing at something – or, more accurately, something’s been pushing at me – and yesterday, with this painting, I think it pushed through.

It’s hard to explain this feeling. I wrote here, first, that I was a little dissatisfied with my paintings recently – but that’s not really right, as I have loved my recent paintings.

I think it’s more that I have had this idea, an idea of a feeling that I’ve wanted the paintings to have, and they just haven’t had that feeling, not completely. But since it’s something I haven’t really felt myself, and something I haven’t seen, all I’ve known is that the stuff I’ve been doing has not created that feeling. Not catalyzed it, at least not for me.

With this little painting, I feel that I’ve broken through. There’s something in this piece, in the colors, in the daubs and smooshes of paint, in the luscious quality of the marsh against the thinner quality of the sky, something that gives me the feeling I’ve been seeking.

Freedom? Joy? Awakening? I still don’t know what it is, exactly, but I know that this piece begins to have it.