Sharika Roland

My husband and I bought an old airstream last year. It is a 1986 Excella so we named it “Bella Excella”. Our idea was to set it up permanently on our lot and run an Air BnB out of it.

We thought it would take a few months to get her up and running but we were wrong. One thing led to another in the fix it up area and before we knew it , one year had gone by . That turned out to be a blessing though as it forced us to deal with our old pipes in the main house too so we killed two birds with one stone. It just took a long time.

Bella has turned out to be a sanctuary that we did not expect. We found ourselves hosting parties on the trailer and spending a lot of time doing special things with the grand kids. It is also where I like to write. There is something about the curvy walls and the red laminate table that is soothing to the soul. Nobody is angry in Bella, Our friends have a place to stay if they need and lots of time we just go out and talk in the tiny kitchen with the strawberry field pom pom curtains and have a cup of coffee.

I want to share it with Air Bnb people but now after a year I am having a hard time thinking they might not take such good care of it as we who love her do.

It might be time to call her what she is, a place to go to when you need a special place that turned out to be a retreat from the noise of life.

“Calla” is a new painting that I have been working on a few months. Here is the backstory. There is a beautiful Mexican woman I know who has a face that I was compelled to paint. She reminded me of the women in Diego Rivera paintings .There was no photo of her to work from so it is just from memory. The more I put down lines the more she had a story to go with her. I know a little of her actual story but the painting took me a little more down the road of thinking about people who have a totally different life than I do. Mexico has always been a real heartthrob for me because of the passion of the people. The way they celebrate particularly speaks to their soul.

I had to add sequins and rhinestones to the painting to get enough of her in the painting. “Calla” is both the flower and the woman. Simple graceful beauty with a smattering of sparkle for her spirit.

So much work is online now for ease. I know, I know it’s easy! Just scroll through the pages and pages of pictures, quickly scanning them like a shopping list. What is the cost of this to our souls? Are we losing interpersonal contact by just staying skin deep??

Best case scenario is work is done and people physically come see it and be with it and feel it as another person entering a room. What is the energy and story of the work you are looking at? I am thinking back to when I was running a gallery and I had work on the wall from astronomically unique artists who had poured out their beautiful soul. It was an honor to sit with the work for a few months and keep seeing new things that made my heart ache. That is what happens when you connect with the artist , your heart aches a little bit from the connecting with the piece of the universe that you know together.

I think art should be shown in a chapel where you feel compelled to linger and think and be quiet with it. What if there was a gallery that was only one painting big and just had a chair ? What a gift that would be. Everybody has time for looking at one thing. The best thing about that is it would be impossible to be just skin deep.