“The Light Will Shine The Way”

Oil on Canvas

40 × 30 inches

$2,800

About the painting:

The Light Will Shine The Way is inspired by a favorite quote from Joseph Campbell that says, ‘If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path.”

The backdrop for this painting is the magical ‘blue hour’ in New Mexico that I love so much, where the sky, right before nightfall, turns an electric blue. We see suggestions through brushstrokes of tree branches, alluding to a universal experience known as the dark night of the soul, or the idea of finding yourself in mid-life in a dark wood where direction is not known but created.

The three golden forms in the foreground connect to each other like a daisy-chain of lanterns, offering guidance for the next step on the journey but not illuminating the destination. They also reference the third chakra as an inner power source, reminding us that clarity often arises from within, and from responding to life itself in the form of people who appear on the path, teachers that arrive at just the right time, and serendipitous events.

This painting anchors into the trust that when we commit to our own becoming, the light we need appears through movement, and the way is revealed by walking it.