Harvest Moon

In this piece of Autistic Expressionism, I was feeling super sad that my kiddo wouldn’t be home for Christmas.

Spending Christmas together is a family tradition from when I was a kid when we would go visit my grandparents and the whole family would be there. We’d have a special Christmas dinner where my grandma would pull out her Twelve Days of Christmas glasses and Christmas plates and we would all sit together at a really long table that went from the dining room all the way into the living room. Afterwards, we would clean up, then sit around the tree where my grandpa would read the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth from Luke and then we would open gifts. Afterwards we would stuff ourselves on all the treats that everyone made and sing songs around grandma’s organ. Sometimes my uncle and grandpa would join with guitars too. All weekend we would play games and all I remember is having so much fun and crying when I had to leave.

I was only able to have one child so my family is very small, and my husband was in the military so we’ve moved around a lot over the years. We did try to make it back home every year for Christmas with our parents, or at least stay somewhere special if we couldn’t. Wherever we were, we spent the time together and since my kid has moved to Japan to teach English, it’s been hard for me and with my newfound love of this new art style, I sat down to process these emotions.

I got busy with my ruler and made sure to create large enough spaces to add the circular elements. I was thinking ahead by planning the composition spaces. My mood determined the color palette, which is why I painted mostly cool colors: blues, purples and greens. I started with stripes, and as a moment of anger hit me at the unfairness of it all, I marked out the stick branches in the bottom left corner. I talked myself out of the anger rather quickly though as I sang and painted. As time went by and I painted, my lines and patterns became softer and curvier. I was starting to feel better, calmer, understanding that the world just isn’t how I want it, and it’s okay. It’s okay to not get my way, and it’s okay to feel angry about that. But I thank the good Lord for my art supplies.

I wound my way around the paper with paint and ink, leaving the big circle in the center until last. You can see by the color I chose, that I was not feeling blue anymore! Since my mood had changed, I opted for a complementary color – tangerine. Orange has never been a favorite of mine, until recently, and I love how much it pops off the page. I’ve never fancied myself an outdoorsy person, but that’s another thing I’ve been learning about myself in the past couple of years. I still don’t like snakes and bugs, but I do enjoy the breeze on my face and looking out over green fields and woods. And of course, I do so love flowers. Outdoor elements found themselves in the painting and even though they are different shapes and species, they add cohesion to the composition.

This has become one of my favorite pieces, and just a side note, my kid was able to come home in January and right my world.

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Dawn