Round and round we go, falling through spaces – ideas – inspiration! If you let the descent to creativity and madness take you, you may find a joyful surprise.
This piece was created with the paints left over from the painting before it. The limitations of the pallet allowed me to explore a level of creative abandon – challenging the canvas itself to provide more perspectives.
Topsy Turvy (oil on canvas, Netherlands / Scotland 2021)
Artist, Master of Law, Familiar Stranger. Snow believes couches are the beds of the busy and the ground is a welcoming cushion. She sometimes struggles to explain what she’s seeing or thinking, so she creates. Snow has a love for oil painting, but flirts with a wide variety of mediums.
“I connect through colour – it helps me feel present. I hope it helps you to feel something unexpected.”
We were locked in our apartments, locked in our rooms; air was stale and the hallways quiet. We daydreamed of the day when finally we could come together at the altar of societies that make us so deeply human.
Social Worship (acrylics on canvas, Scotland 2021)
Artist, Master of Law, Familiar Stranger. Snow believes couches are the beds of the busy and the ground is a welcoming cushion. She sometimes struggles to explain what she’s seeing or thinking, so she creates. Snow has a love for oil painting, but flirts with a wide variety of mediums.
“I connect through colour – it helps me feel present. I hope it helps you to feel something unexpected.”
The pursuit of colour is why I paint. It makes me feel alive – ready to conquer, to feel, to evolve. Under the ethos of challenging my own complacency, I opened the black paint that has been gathering dust in the darkest corner of my art supplies and explored the abstract.
Working with shades of black allowed me to put into shapes – rather than words – the stress I was experiencing. Stress, like the colour black, isn’t necessarily the bringer of negativity. It can bring perspective, a new path – even a new approach to my own creativity.
Monochrome (oil on canvas, Scotland 2021)
Artist, Master of Law, Familiar Stranger. Snow believes couches are the beds of the busy and the ground is a welcoming cushion. She sometimes struggles to explain what she’s seeing or thinking, so she creates. Snow has a love for oil painting, but flirts with a wide variety of mediums.
“I connect through colour – it helps me feel present. I hope it helps you to feel something unexpected.”
With the wilful power of an asteroid, she soars through space and time. Humanity is nothing without its sense for madness and excitement in looking to an ambiguous future. We look to the stars – in our futures, creative pursuits, and collective endeavors.
Thank you to the wild women who inspired this – I hope you’re soaring as we speak.
Soar (pastels on paper, Scotland 2021)
Artist, Master of Law, Familiar Stranger. Snow believes couches are the beds of the busy and the ground is a welcoming cushion. She sometimes struggles to explain what she’s seeing or thinking, so she creates. Snow has a love for oil painting, but flirts with a wide variety of mediums.
“I connect through colour – it helps me feel present. I hope it helps you to feel something unexpected.”
Fred was a simple man. For him, the world was a scary place. His wife, Wanda, worried all the time and cried herself to sleep every night. They lived in a rental in a small town and Fred worked maintenance for the park department. During long winters, he had to work through the night, driving the snowplow and keeping the streets free of snow and ice. As bad as it seemed, their life was tolerable until the pandemic came to town. The pandemic was brutal. People fell like leaves in the fall. News of countless deaths followed the days of the months.
Attempting to slow the spread of the disease, the mayor mandated face masks. But it didn’t help because over time the virus reached everyone. Many citizens fell ill from fear alone, and Fred grew frightened as the toll mounted. He worried that the pain in his stomach meant he had the virus. Hospitals were so crowded with the sick and dying that they closed their doors to the public. Moving to another town wasn’t an option, they didn’t have any savings and it was tough to pay the rent. Besides, they learned from the news that the disease had spread worldwide, and no country on earth was safe. Depression became so oppressive he built a bunker in his basement. Reinforcing the door and collecting everything from toilet paper to guns. Every night after work, TV news droned in the background, adding to his trepidation. At first, alcohol dulled the fear, but whiskey was outside of his budget.
One night, he watched a show discussing treatments for schizophrenia. Peace and calm came to those who went through the operation. At the library, he studied the procedure in fine detail. All he needed was a long, sterilized needle. His first experiment would be on the dog, an excitable little thing, constantly underfoot and yapping at every noise. Fred parted the fuzzy hair on its little head and completed the process without a whimper. Immediately, the dog became docile and lay on the floor all day. It was hard to tell if it was dead or alive. Flush with success, Fred proposed the idea to his wife. Wanda was a worrier, so a splash of whiskey helped. Then, after positioning the sterilized tip under her eyebrow, Fred closed his own eyes and eased it upward a good eight inches. The result was positive: like the little dog; she stopped worrying and sat in the chair all day and watched soap operas.
Fred stood looking at himself in the mirror, planning his own procedure. Wincing as the point touched the flesh above his eye, he figured another shot of Wanda’s whiskey will keep him sober enough to control the angle. Fred gritted his teeth and inserted the thin rod of stainless steel. Sharp pain vanished, replaced by mild euphoria, his thoughts blurred, but he felt the operation had been a success. His feet were unsteady as walked into the bathroom to look in the mirror. Blood ran down from the metal rod sticking in his head. But a smile greeted him that he hadn’t seen in years.
Frightened Fred by Tim Hildebrandred
Tim Hildebrandt is a writer in metro Indianapolis, Indiana. His short stories have appeared in print and online publications such as Misery Tourism, The Boston Literary Magazine, Bending Genres, and Literally Stories. He also paints in oils and shows in select exhibits. Current projects include assembling an anthology of short stories. You can check out his work at: https://www.instagram.com/ax_beckett.
