I could not pass up the charm of the terracotta jar, glazed in a muted hue of lavender, filled with tangy delight. I found myself indulging in the pleasure of this yogurt for months. The jars added up quickly and so did a lack of cupboard space to keep them. I insisted that drinking 4.5 oz of water at a time from them justified their real estate. It became a morning ritual to sit and eat the yogurt with a prismatic glass gelato spoon. A simple pleasure I looked forward to each day.
At the time, I was moving through a period of grief and uncertainty. I had recently separated from my partner of 13 years and decided to rent a small studio apartment to find the space I needed to explore what I wanted in my marriage. I felt lost and anxious, searching for a way to process the range of emotions that surfaced each day.
I decided to try my hand at painting as a way to sooth my anxiety. I bought watercolors, a small pad of paper, and some basic brushes. From my collection of terracotta yogurt jars, I took one to rinse my brushes in and another as my subject. Into the evening I went mixing colors and discovering a variety of shapes. I moved through them in a state of surrender, when one felt complete I began again. The process felt both refreshing and challenging, each attempt a small journey into something unknown. It was a way to feel the act of beginning.
As a creative and visual communicator, I’m no stranger to the delicate balance of self-expression and perfectionism. In that moment, I needed something unburdened by the usual expectations I put on myself, something to help me move forward through the tangle of feelings I was carrying. Painting became that outlet, a quiet, gentle place to lean into each feeling without the weight of perfection or judgment towards my skills.
One painting quickly became twelve. I couldn’t help but notice the connection, and the humor, between collecting those terracotta jars and accumulating paintings of them. Each painting felt like its own vessel, capturing whatever emotion was passing through me at the time and inviting playfulness into the act of processing my feelings. Each jar became a small, quiet beginning. My brushstrokes started to flow like the rhythm of something ancient and instinctive. Colors swept across the paper with growing confidence, guided by a hand that had learned to trust itself.