Let Me Bring Peace [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 26, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

I identify the chapters of my life through specific paintings. There was the era of August Ride. There was the era of Shaman. Iconic marks a remarkable and productive period. This morsel is from An Instrument of Peace. It is the painting that marks the most recent phase, a creative left turn when alphabets and images ran together. It marks a time of paradox, tighter constraints and spontaneous freedoms, a time when I wandered lost in the only place I’ve ever known as home.

Midway through the painting process, working fast and loose, I picked up my charcoal and scribbled in one long string of letters The Prayer of St. Francis. I randomly repeated some words and phrases, ran them off the canvas. I sealed them in acrylic, smudging some of the characters.

Just like all the others, I knew An Instrument of Peace was a life-marker when I painted it. I knew it was the end of a cycle, a little death. Now, as I work and wait patiently for the new cycle, sometimes I go into my studio and tack this very large painting on the wall and sit with it. In this era of division and discord in our country, I think there might not be a better aspiration, a more relevant sentiment than this painting and poem suggest: where there is hatred, let me bring love.