Love Takes Flight
It’s not often that I express pain or loss in my artwork. This very personal painting from 2009 was an exception. I was grieving a loss that took years to get over. It came in waves that washed over me and seemed to cut right through me – shown here as transparent waves of pulsing color that pass through the figure’s body. She is feverish with emotion, flushed with the bittersweet anguish of a love that could not last.
A friend of mine once described the intensity of grief as “a bird caught in a barn,” flapping wildly at the walls and windows, trying to escape. A vision came to me of this bird, flapping inside me – but the bird wasn’t solid, it was a hole – or rather, a vessel of memories – memories that both haunted and eluded me. Are the hands of the figure trying to catch the bird, or are they releasing it to fly away?
Loss is an inevitable part of love. As day follows night, sooner or later we are separated from our loved ones by time or circumstance, or perhaps by the death of the love itself. Love can be starved by absence, poisoned by betrayal, weakened by neglect, or revealed as untrue to begin with. It’s a living thing that unfolds organically, as unstoppable as a rising tide, as elusive as a receding one. Love has the power to dissolve boundaries, yet cannot be bound itself. The paradoxes go on and on.
You never know when love will take flight – either ushered in on the winds of fate, or carried away on the currents of time. Like a migrating bird, it’s a wild creature, forever free.
A good week to all –
D. Yael Bernhard
https://dyaelbernhard.com
Have you seen my other Substack, The Art of Health? In addition to being a visual artist, I’m also a certified integrative health & nutrition coach with a lifelong passion for natural food cooking and herbal medicine. Now in its second year, this illustrated newsletter explores cutting-edge concepts of nutrition. I strive to make relevant information clear and accessible, and to anchor essential health concepts in unique images. Check it out, and if you like it, please subscribe and help spread the word. Your support keeps my work going!
so beautiful, thank you.