CONNECTIONS | ART | SYMBOLISM

What Are These Angels Doing in My Life?

How I started painting angels

I don’t know much about angels. Have never been interested in reading about them or much less painting them. Yet, they have made an appearance in my life.

As an artist, I have quite a bit of unfinished artwork in my studio. Sometimes a piece sits unfinished for over ten years. Such was the case regarding an angel.

I’ve come to believe finishing an artwork is all about timing. Maybe the piece is not ready to be completed. There could be something it needs that I have not yet discovered. Or maybe I am not ready for what it has to teach me.

At age 64, I no longer beat myself up about artwork left unfinished. I allow it to have all the time it needs. I allow myself to have all the time I need. The art and I are in a dance of creation together. Our relationship is one of having no strict rules. One of allowing flow and perfect timing.

Those close to me know I have never been into angels. Angels have never been “my thing.” I think because they are tied to too much of my childhood and Christianity.

One exception is this little angel that hangs in my kitchen. I purchased it almost 20 years ago when I worked at a postal outlet in a pharmacy. I liked the simplistic design and almost that she might not be an angel at all.

That had been the extent of a presence of an angel in my life. Until…

I frequent second-hand clothing stores that usually have a small section of books. I find it less overwhelming than a used bookstore, where there’s just too much to search through.

Sometimes I buy a book because it seems like too good of a deal to pass up. I buy it because it might come in useful someday, either for me or for someone else. Sometimes, I buy books without a clear reason why.

I have not read any of the angel books I’ve purchased. But I’ve leafed through them, looking at the pictures.

While looking through this book, I was drawn to an angel.

For whatever reason I decided I would make a painting of it. I chose a piece of wood 11 x 3.5 inches and did a drawing on paper to transfer it onto the wood. Then I lost interest and moved on to creating something else and the plan to paint the angel got pushed to the side and forgotten for years.

Every now and then while cleaning up my studio I’d find the angel.

I’d set it out where I planned to finish it. Then it got forgotten again. Until this year, 2023, when I set it on my deck with the intention of finishing what I’d long ago started. This time I finished it, and the angel now hangs outside my bedroom door.

I tend to go through phases in what I create. I might draw with ink and watercolor for months in a sketchbook. Then switch to needle felting and sewing brooches. I’m no longer represented in a gallery and have stopped being concerned about selling what I create. It’s as it was in childhood, I create just for the sake of creating, with no need to prove my art has value.

Whenever I make these switches, I first pack the materials I’d been using away and tidy up and clear my working space for a new project.

A cleansing of sorts to both me and my workspace.

That clean, cleared space is all part of the prep. The process. The welcoming in of new creative energy.

Since finishing the first angel I have moved on to painting more.

Here is the second angel I’ve painted.

While cleaning out my studio and looking for wood to paint more angels, I discovered these four faces…unfinished. They now kind of remind me of angels’ faces.

Four angels

Then with new eyes I looked at a painting I’d done in 2019.

I titled the painting Golden Child. Now I see how it resembles an angel.

Had angels been stirring within me for years?

This new work of painting angels is quite different than what I’ve done before. Yes, I’ve previously painted on wood. But not since my early teens have I copied other artworks. Reproduced the images of others.

For many years I’ve been drawn to medieval art and constantly searching the internet images for images, I feel a connection to. Now I search for angels! For other artists’ work from long ago to make my own.

Two more angels I’m working on.

I don’t know what the significance of these angels in my life means. But I’m trusting in the direction and following the trail.

Recently, I was at an event and had no intention of buying anything. But when I saw the pendant in the photo below, I had such a connection to it that I had to buy it.

The pendant has a medieval feel to it.

I didn’t want to buy the pendant, but I also didn’t want to regret not buying it. The truth is that I have never regretted any of my purchases, only the things I have walked away from. Those items still haunt me.

I don’t wear the pendant often. But I hang items I’m drawn to and love on my writing desk where I can see them every day and enjoy and connect with them.

Have you ever been drawn to purchase objects you are drawn to? Can you relate to feeling a connection with certain images?

Feel free to share.

And if you have any suggestions on what these angels in my life might mean, again, feel free to share.

Barbara Carter Artist and writer with a focus on healing from childhood trauma, alcohol addiction, and living her best authentic life.

Likes to take walks, read, watch TV dramas, and practice Qi-gong, and work on her memoir series BARBARA By The BAY.