Painting: Freedom Goes Up in Flames

This is the first painting I completed in acrylics. It is titled "Freedom Goes Up in Flames" and yes, that is an airplane with flames. I have been surprised to hear the wide variety of interpretations people have come up when looking at it. There were some surprises and some reactions that I completely expected. I got a bigger kick out of hearing what they thought it meant than I did out of explaining what I intended it to symbolize.

So, as a little experiment, I want to hear your interpretations. Go ahead and go now to the comments, drop me a note and tell me what you see. I want to assure you that there are no right or wrong answers. Whatever you see, whether you are spot on or come up with something I had never considered, it is a valid opinion and I would be honored to hear it. Go on! Leave me a comment - don't make me beg! - then come back and read where my head was when I painted it...

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What I Meant:

Like I said, this is titled, "Freedom Goes Up in Flames" and it is the first painting I completed in the new acrylics. The important parts of this painting are the colors as each color corresponds to a specific emotional response I had during an incident at an airport.

BFF and Kid-5 took a cross-country vacation via airplane. They flew out from the airport that is a few hours from our house because of the drastic price difference. To that end, I got to play chauffeur and take them to the airport (and pick them up again 5 days later). The whole of the month before they left, BFF worried and stressed and fussed about the details of managing this trip across the country by herself with a 2 year old in tow. The entire week preceding the departure was filled with tension and anxiety and the actual morning that we left should have turned us both grey-haired and sent us into straight-jackets for life. We were late getting out, got lost on the way (stupid GPS sent us to the wrong place!) Finally we arrived at the airport, got checked in and headed to the security checkpoint.

As I watched them walk away, I felt my emotions swirling like a cloud of colors. This might be in part because I had just started painting and colors were in the front of my mind. As I paid attention to the emotions/colors, they seemed to settle into images so that I could paint them. And paint them I did...

First I felt this strange combo of worry (how would she handle Kid-5 all by herself on the planes?) and excitement (they are going to have so much fun!) It created that gray-green color of the grass and (pardon the pun) laid the groundwork for the whole thing.

So close on the heels of the worry/excitement that they seemed almost simultaneous, the relief washed over me. In my mind, this became a bright periwinkle. It became the sky in this painting, though I didn't quite capture the color - not purple enough to be truly periwinkle.

Following the relief, a sense of fatigue swirled through me. Not just fatigue, chronic fatigue, the kind that is ever-present and seems to stretch forward into eternity with the promise of never completely going away. This became the gray-tan road.

At this point, I could no longer see BFF and Kid-5; they had passed beyond my line of sight towards the gate. I turned around to go back into the high, open area of the terminal. We had been running late arriving and so had not had time to look around at all the shops and restaurants and the gorgeous view out the wall of glass. Curiosity bubbled up, a bright yellow feeling that swirled around itself and lit up my mood. Thus the sun found a place in my painting.

My eyes roamed the terminal, taking in all the sights. Movement outside the two-story glass window drew my attention. I watched a plan launch itself into the sky. As bright blue as Tom Bombadil's eyes, freedom launched itself into my consciousness and completely filled my thoughts. I was free. I didn't have to be anywhere or do anything. No kids were whining at me; no house scolded me in its need to be cleaned. The light on Mom's taxi read "OFF-DUTY" and my time and my energy were my own to command. The desire to jump on a plane and disappear overwhelmed me. I stood rooted in the terminal, wondering where I could go and which ticket counter to try first. I took a step towards the escalators to go buy a ticket with the image of a bright blue airplane lifting off settling onto the painting forming in my mind.

I didn't even land that first step when reality struck. I couldn't get on a plane. I couldn't afford a plane ticket, let alone what came after it. And my time wasn't my own; the schedule, even with Kid-5 off my books, remained packed. I had obligations, responsibilities, commitments. A weighty shadow settled over me, killing the sudden emotional high I had just experienced. This became the shadow on the ground: I was tethered to the ground - not free at all. It became the jetwash behind the plane: this shadow follows me no matter where I go.

As my mood crashed with the realization that the freedom I briefly deluded myself into thinking I had was, in fact, a delusion, other emotions joined the color-swirl. I felt angry, resentful, frustrated and disappointed that my idea had crashed and burned. The negative feelings threatened to consume me as the flames threaten the plane.

My freedom had gone up in flames.

A few things to note about this painting. First, and most important, is that despite being engulfed in flames and representing an experience that ended negatively, the plane is still flying UP. It isn't plummeting to the ground. This is the stubborn streak of optimism that can be found in even the most depressing of my pieces. It is also representative of the fact that, if I had truly wanted to, I could have possessed that freedom. I could have gone to the ticket counter and purchased a ticket to somewhere, gotten onto a plane and taken off without notice or planning or forethought. Despite the shadowy weights, I could still have forced my freedom.

Another thing about it: this was my first attempt at mixing acrylic colors. Thought I wasn't able to reproduce two of the colors from my head onto the canvas, most of the colors I ended up with worked alright. In fact, given my lack of experience (let alone instruction) in visual art, I am pretty proud of this painting. No one questioned what I had depicted: an airplane taking off into a blue sky, consumed with flames, its shadow cast on the grass below and leaving a trail behind it. Interpretations varied wildly (and fascinating to listen to!) but the objects themselves were not called into doubt.