"The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart." — George Sand

This is a quintessential, Spring morning in Maine—the air thick with moisture, brisk and chilly still. Birds are chirping intermittently as if in conversation and the water of this tucked away bay dances with the breeze that rises up and then stills, rises up and then stills again. Occasionally a very large gust of wind comes charging through, “I’m here! I’m here!” it announces whipping through the branches of towering Pines swaying them deeply one way and then the next. Earlier—with his sharp five year old eyes—Adrian caught sight of a red fox running across our yard. I had seen him yesterday as well. He had come so near to the steps of our back porch and row of glass doors, it almost seemed as if he were peering in at my kitty, Autumn, who stared back out at him from her safe and warm pillow perch. I have a sense that there are some new baby foxes about that he is looking after, scouting food for. It is only a sense, though.

I am in gratitude for a friend who inspired my latest work of art. I have long had a heart for people who go about this world unseen and in need. My first encounter with significant poverty was as a young girl in a church thrift store where my mother volunteered her time. People would come in looking for emergency dental care. In some ways it seemed that their teeth were the least of their worries. I tried to be at ease so that they might feel seen—but not too seen. I remember trying to pretend as if nothing was wrong although I knew something was very wrong. I was awakened. Again and again I have been roused to awareness of the souls who walk this earth unattended to. I lived in New York City in most of my 20’s and early 30’s.  When not engrossed in the roller coaster of my own coming-of-age story, I remembered about others and volunteered with Coalition for the Homeless. It seems that when I come to a new place, part of what I do is to seek out the people in need. I’ve done that same thing here in Maine.

I remember once being in a van that went around the Bowery in Lower Manhattan delivering meals. The driver was a memorable guy who fueled his sobriety with this work. It was dusk—the bridges were beginning to light up around the city as we drove from location to location—delivering meals out of milk crates. There was one moment in particular on an outing like any other that I have replayed in my mind over and over like a gritty movie reel. We were somewhere around Chinatown and the FDR drive which runs along the East Side of Manhattan. It was nearly dark now and as I began to climb out of the van, I got a glimpse in the distance of the people approaching us and it took my breath away. They just kept coming and coming and coming pouring out of dilapidated buildings and alleyways like ants out of an anthill. As they came more near, I took in their physical condition. Their clothes and skin were deeply layered and worn, thick with dirt and suffering and decades of mental illness and addictions untreated.

Late last year, I described to my friend how I was hoping to bring awareness to the devastating issue of homelessness in our country through my art. My first thought had been to create portraits of homeless individuals enhanced in colors and imagery that would invoke all that lies beneath the often tired and weathered outer appearance of those without a safe place to lay their head at night. It was then that my friend—who has a much deeper connection to what it means to be homeless than I do—suggested that I create a piece of art that could simply be enjoyed by homeless people in a space where they gathered. She turned her head up a little and suggested with a slight smile that inspiration might be of some use, that a piece of art might be an unexpected source of hope in an otherwise drab environment like a soup kitchen. I admired her insight—the respect she demonstrated with her idea for all people needing access to beauty and communion with their hearts. Her idea spoke to me instantly and freed me, too, to concentrate on a work of art that was simply beautiful and bright and inspiring.

I began to envision an array of colors that would represent a pouring out of all that remains good in the world despite the evidence otherwise. As I began creating a paper palette, I grew very still inside, inviting a universal force to be with me in my work and to guide the outcome. Although I hadn’t presented the idea to anyone there, I had a vision of sharing the completed work over the holiday season at Portland’s soup kitchen, Preble Street. I was fueled by the bad news in the media wanting to be a part of a counter-balance. There was the continued school violence and then the Syrian Refugee Crisis and news of record homelessness numbers in New York City—including an ever-growing number of children without a place to be safe at home in the night. I underestimated the amount of time it would take to complete the work but settled into the process trusting in what I recognize as a divine timing in all things.

As weeks and then months passed, my work also became deeply informed by my current participation in a yoga teacher training and specifically my mind opening to the idea of a fascial network within each of our bodies supporting and protecting all that we are made up of. I found this image to be an excellent metaphor for the networks of our human capacities for holding each other—and not holding each other—and the ways that the systems may be disrupted through injury and trauma.

It is a gift each time I am allowed to participate in a piece of art coming to life and I never know where the work will take me. This experience was no exception. Over the course of five months, what began as a pouring out of the love and the good that I still know and trust exists in this multifaceted world, became an expression of the deeply held connections between us all as we make our way through the interwoven nature of life’s unfolding. This work—that I have just recently completed and named, “Fascia,”—became about our universal source and backdrop as human beings, as creators, as small drops in the vast ocean of the Universe.

I have yet to make arrangements to share “Fascia” publicly—though I intend to. I do not know how it would actually be received. Maybe people really do just want and need us to help them get into a place where they can have a home. Or maybe they would love to stand before a work of art and be reminded that they matter—that they have significance in this colorful world that we all share. My wish is that they would never, ever have to choose between the two. Either way, I am grateful to have entered into this process once again and to have been reminded where I fit in.

“Fascia” by Meghan Anderson Nathanson 2016 Mixed Media 80″ x 77″