Sharika Roland

[singlepic id=232 w=150 h=150 ]

[singlepic id=225 w=150 h=150 ]

[singlepic id=224 w=150 h=150 ]

A hospital is like slow motion. The building might have windows but you can’t open them. You are in a huge building for  days and days running the maze of hallways , running toward that one room, where your Dad lays helpless.The man that was strong and a shield for you, is now a little sick old man who needs a lot of attention.  Hours tick by and you are just treading water in a sea of confusion. So many different people filter into the room poking and  sticking needles and shoving him around like a sack of potatoes. This man who was my reliable shore to always have to go to. Now he is in a different place. Nobody knows him here. They don’t know the great things he did in the past 89 years.

He is just a man in a bed to them, a man who is yelling at them to stop hurting him. Begging them to stop. I want them to tell him they see him and care but they can’t. There are so many others to take care of  who also have long histories and people and stories.

It is like watching a movie that you are in but the script gets changed every day.

The vortex … makes home seem incredibly friendly by contrast.

The nurses try and sooth us but they are tired and the doctors are tired and nobody is happy there. How can you be with all that suffering  and aloneness and stuckness.

The paintings in the hospital are like steams of water in a desert . They are so important and a wonderful distraction for the sameness of the horrible hallways and machines and monotony.

It makes me want to scoop all the people in the beds and take them to the beach to recuperate with the windows open and the sea wind swirling into the rooms to wash all their fears away.

I brought Dad in some lavender oil to have to take away the hospital and he said it was marvelous.

He kissed my hand.

I was in the studio today working away at finishing some paintings. It was quiet and simple and sweet. I was reflecting on why I paint almost the same thing a million times, why it does not get old to me or boring or dreary. No two paintings are even a little alike to me. They each have their own mood and energy and personality. They each say something different to me. Are they a reflection of some aspect of me over and over.. No. they are not anything like me. They are new people.

When I am working I feel like I am not alone. Ever.  This new person is speaking to me.

And the greatest thing of all is they each speak something different to anyone who looks at them. Are people that you meet ever boring.. No they are full of infinity and how can that become even the  least bit dull. all the stars in the sky are similar but you never get used to the first look as they peak out at night. The waves come in and go out forever but they are each a new minute to ponder the fact that the ocean is a big place with a horizon.

That is how I see the paintings I do. That is how I want anyone who looks at them to experience them.  always new always interesting always immediate.