Midway to Elsewhere

Acrylic, pencil, washi on wood.

40x48x1.50"

Like Between Then and Now, this painting spent a long time waiting. But for entirely different reasons. I loved its first layers so deeply that I was afraid to touch them. I began this piece at the end of 2024, a time when fear and hesitation were still very present in my studio. Those early marks—bold strokes of grey, white, and blue, laid down with an extra wide brush my husband had made for me—felt alive and complete in their own way.

I knew, though, that the painting wasn’t finished. It was tempting to stop there, to protect what I loved by calling it done. Instead, I gave it time. Time to work on other pieces, time to experiment, time to figure out who I was becoming as an artist.

Because of its size, it remained on my easel for months, quietly present as I moved around it. Slowly, it began to pull me back in.

Then one day, without hesitation or doubt, I knew exactly what the next step was. We moved forward together—without fear, with confidence and joy—into the unknown.

Those early layers are still there, visible and grounding, but what came after carries so much energy that the painting feels as though it’s bursting with passion. Midway to Elsewhere lives in that moment of transition: the space between holding on and letting go.