Share Your Love

My original acrylic on canvas painting entitled "Share Your Love." 

This painting, entitled "Share Your Love" is actually the biggest piece I have created to date. Painted on a 28x22 stretched canvas with acrylic paints, it took about 2.5-3 days of solid work in order for the piece to be complete. I didn't use anything fancy for this piece, like I did when creating "Sonder", just brushes and paint.

A photo I took on SnapChat at a stopping point. If you guys are interested in watching my paintings come to life, you should follow me on SnapChat because when I'm painting I always post updates to my story. My username is Jessi_Lee 

The idea for the painting came from a mental image I had while listening to THIS song called "Share Your Love" by Traces, and that was played on repeat most of the time I was working on the piece.
To me, the painting is about giving until you have nothing left to give, and about people relentlessly taking those parts of yourself you're offering up without bringing anything to the table themselves. It's about continuing on sheer willpower when you're too tired. When people are asking too much of you, or even when you're asking too much of yourself, which is something I struggle with quite often. When you expect too much from yourself, you're constantly left feeling as if you didn't give enough. You're left feeling disappointed, sitting there picking your own feathers out one by one, and then wondering why you have no motivation left to fly. So you gather up the courage to try, but you're too exhausted. You're too weak from the self abuse so you fail, and the cycle continues. Unfortunately I know this cycle all too well, and have actually become quite comfortable with it, to an extent.
It's about when you're being pulled in every direction imaginable by people who don't seem to notice, or to care, and the toll it takes on you. It's about the days where you want to be there for your best friend, or your family member who is struggling and needs an ear, but you just feel like an empty shell of the person you once were....or maybe you never were that person. You aren't quite sure anymore. You feel like you can barely manage yourself, let alone attempt to take on someone else. Maybe the demands at work or school seem like they're sucking the life out of you--they're plucking your feathers out.
The painting is about the feeling that you've been spending your life living for someone else. Growing your feathers only for them to be plucked away before you can even enjoy them yourself. It's about reaching desperately for your own boot straps to pull yourself up, but the pain and soreness from your metaphorical feathers being pulled relentlessly from your sore and bleeding skin leaves you feeling unable. So you stay down, and people pluck more from your defenseless being. And the cycle continues.
This painting is sad and raw, rough and honest. It's about how people, if they sense vulnerability, if they sense you're giving parts of yourself away at little to no cost, will latch on to that, because who doesn't want something for nothing? They'll take full advantage, even if they know it's wrong. They'll reach through thorns, broken and bleeding, to get a piece of what it is you're providing. Especially if they think it might patch wounds of their own.
Everyone loves to get something for nothing.
This painting is a nod at the uncomfortable truth behind the cute and loving story of "The Giving Tree" by Sheil Silverstein. It's a testament to the darker side of generosity, highlighting that sometimes, on both the giving and receiving end, people don't know or don't care when enough is enough. The narcissistic taker and the compassionate, compulsive enabler and their tragic relationship to one another.
Unfortunately, there is no happy ending to this painting. No moral, no way to fix it. The bird is trapped in a cage, and the hands aren't daunted by the thorns in the slightest. They'll continue to bleed, as much as the bird. Both equally hurt and unhealthy and both equally wrong and confused.

But on that note, I implore you all to look inward to your own lives. To live selflessly, but to know when you need to take a break and fill yourself back up. Like on a plane, they tell you to secure your oxygen mask before helping another. Take that imperative with you, though I know, as well as anyone else, how difficult it is. Treat yourselves with unconditional kindness and not wear yourselves down until you have nothing left to water the flowers in your garden with anything other than your own blood. And to make sure that you're giving and taking in harmony, and that you find a healthy balance. That you work to fill others who may seem weary. Connections we have to others have an intense power to shape who we are, make sure yours are good ones both with the outside world and with yourself. Find your balance, and help others to find theirs.

The ORIGINAL canvas of this painting, as well as prints, are available on Etsy which can be viewed HERE. Thanks for your support!