Corners, Shadows, and Soft(er) Landings

Years ago, my best friend asked me, “I know you are able to paint figuratively, why are your paintings abstract?” 

Lately, inspiration includes figurative drawing and painting. Most of my photography is figurative – though in picture-taking lately, I’ve been drawn to ephemeral light and shadow.

Ideas have been piling up, acting on them is the trick. My routine had been taking care of Mom for the last few years – and I somehow thought the crescendo of her death would mean a big releasing of familial pull and tension. But then, there were court filings and bank accounts to deal with (and bills to be paid), and gardens to be built,  yard work to be done, pipes to be unfrozen, chicken coops to be built, roofs repaired . . . 

We haven’t had a memorial for Mom yet. Every now and then I notice her ghost, and my sister’s ghost, out of the corner of my eye. Hovering outside the kitchen window, knocking on the door, watching over the garden. 

I needed to come back home. I am grateful I was there for my mom. All my life, within my family, there has been a sense of trying to make something work under a dark veil. I’m not willing to live under a shroud any more. I recently recognized the snare and entanglement of cords that are not mine to hold. Sometimes I have to let go daily, sometimes many times a day. 

I’m doing hard things, and I’m trusting those hard things open way to ease. 

I am opening to ease.

Today, I’m in the southwest visiting my friend who asked me about abstraction. It’s bright and sunny and warm here. I’m happy to see some of my art. A geographic change from the wet and cold is welcome. I left so much behind here – I almost bought (borrowed money to buy) a van so I could bring all my things back east. I’m glad I slowed down – this fool has taken a leap but still has not landed. 

And then there is a meditation on blue . . . 

Exhibition Statement from Dreaming in Cyan (October 2021) Show at The HeArtbox Gallery, Flagstaff

Where I don’t have words or music – I have colors, shapes, movement, and layers. Painting is one of the ways in which I synthesize, integrate, and share the stories of my life – especially stories that are not yet verbal, or that have no need to be verbal. They are the tails of dream fragments, the distinct visceral feeling of a hazy memory, the heat and tingle of a whisper. 

The predominant color in all of my paintings is Phthalocyanine Blue. I remember in college, discovering this blue – it’s strength, warmth, and vibrancy. How easily it spread, the tiniest amount going a long way. Blue as expansive, permeating, and powerful sent hot shivers down my spine. 

Before my breakthrough, I thought of blue as soft, cool, passive, and delicate – a color that could easily fade and be lost. No more! The day I learned of pthalo transformed my understanding and my relationship with the power of blue.

Cyan is potent; it’s like rich butter. It’s a delicious color to melt into, to play with. 

Cyan changed the way I look at other blues: cerulean, cobalt, indigo, azure, turquoise, cornflower, sapphire, aquamarine, lapis, and periwinkle. I see life, a shimmer, a glow. 

Cyan reminds me of childhood early summer, the semi-annual painting of my grandfather’s swimming pool. Rolling the paint out on concrete, smelling the enamel, flooding my eyes with dazzling brightness. Summers swimming, floating, surrounded by blue. Days dreaming until shadows grew long, disappearing in the half-light.

Blue is everywhere – the sky, the ocean, gemstones, the center of a candle flame. 

The vibration of blue gently trickles into my work and psyche, healing the experience of collective and personal grief and trauma. Sometimes blue is there to smooth the sharp edge of homesickness for the life I left in New York City – my friends, the pace, the hum and buzz of so much collective creativity. Sometimes it feels like blue comes in and holds sorrow, lets it be what it needs to be.

Blue resonates joy and possibility and innocence.

This is the color I vibrate with. Blue permeates me. If I were to radiate a color, it would be cyan blue. It is the color of dreams, of hope, of joyful song, of new beginnings.

Blue is a new day, a new chance, a place to start over. 

Blue is nothingness and everything, the endless unspeakable moment of pure potential.

Years before Dreaming in Cyan – I wrote this poem. I almost called it Blue Crush – but then a movie about surfing called Blue Crush came out!

Crush (1976)

Cigarette dangling from her mouth
Bunny opened the door.
I thought she was cool.
Bunny was an enormous woman.

Bunny opened the door and grinned.
Her trailer had a dark heady smell.
Enormous, Bunny wore a strapless shiny polyester cheetah print jumpsuit,
gold high heels, gold hoop earrings, and gold bangles.

Her trailer smelled dark, heady, secret.
I wanted to go in, but M’s mother made us wait outside.
I told M I wanted gold high heels and that I couldn’t wait to get my ears pierced.
We poked sticks in the mud and pretended to be Davey and Mike, our favorite Monkees.

I wanted to see the mysterious darkness inside.
Dimly, we heard David Bowie singing about outer space.
We drew stars and moons in the mud,
stopped talking and listened—

We heard him cry – 5 years, that’s all we’ve got!
My head spun, that’s almost my whole life.
We stopped talking. For a minute
my stick, the stars, the mud and M disappeared.

The world spun and I was in the sky looking at my life.
I saw nothing but endless blue
no stick, no stars, no mud, no M, just blue—

and it was beautiful.

I saw something push through the edge of blue
when the smell of Bunny’s trailer hit me.
It was beautiful.
Glimmering purple haloed her eyes,

Bunny carried the smell of her trailer
when she stepped outside into the afternoon sun.
Shimmering eyes squinting,
she lit the cigarette dangling from her mouth.

©2003 Holly Troy

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Thanks for going on this trip with me.

Peace, love, and orchids – 

May 22, 2025
Flagstaff, AZ