This one precious life

Nicole's Story Behind The Painting:

I chose the title of this painting based on a line from one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day.” Here’s the poem -

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

With my one precious life, I plan to love. And to me, loving means valuing compassion, joy, justice, openness, and connection, expression, and truth. It means paying attention to the people and world around me. It means sharing what I’ve got to give, whether that’s my art, my voice, my writing, my time. And it means truly being here, right here.

This painting has several layers of paintings underneath that look very different than the result. Similarly, my life can’t be boiled down to one moment or one very tangible thing. And that’s just fine with me - living is wild, messy, and all the more precious.