When Grace Paused

The story behind the painting

This is When Grace Paused Grace was created through layers and layers of torn magazine pages, fragments that individually seem insignificant but together begin to create an entirely new form. Paint was then worked over and between those layers, pushing and pulling color, light and shadow until her body took shape. Her stripes became more than black and white. Unexpected colors appeared. Texture became movement. And eventually, there she was. Grace. There is something meaningful to me about creating her this way. She was built from pieces—changed, covered, uncovered and reconsidered. In many ways, that is what a new beginning looks like. We rarely arrive at something new untouched by what came before. We bring the pieces of our past with us and somehow make something different from them. Grace is stepping through a threshold, surrounded by gold leaf. One leg has already crossed the boundary. She is moving forward, yet she pauses and turns her head. And in that pause, there is an encounter. A butterfly rests nearby—two completely different lives briefly sharing the same space. Neither needs to be like the other for us to recognize beauty in both. That small interaction became an important part of the painting for me. We spend so much of our lives seeing the world from our own perspective that it can be easy to overlook the lives unfolding all around us. Animals experience their own moments, relationships and existence independent of ours. There is extraordinary beauty in simply recognizing that. Perhaps Grace pauses because she has noticed another life. Perhaps she pauses because she has noticed us. Or perhaps she is simply taking one last look before stepping into whatever comes next. When Grace Paused is about new beginnings, but it is also about what we choose to see along the way. It is a reminder that moving forward doesn't require us to forget where we have been—and that sometimes, in the middle of our own journey, we should pause long enough to recognize the beauty and value of another life. Grace took a long time to reveal herself to me. But when she finally did, she felt a little magical. — Barbara J. Demers