11/24/2025
Life is messy,
but so is art.
Both a process, often never finished, left undone with more to be done
or re-done.
Hands dressed up from thumb to wrist with dried up paint chips cracking from cramping.
Below my feet lies the wasteland of waste, crumpled papers with crooked lines
and failed designs,
like 2009
and lump-in-the-throat confessions beginning with
“that one time.”
Life is messy,
but it is beautiful.
It is the ink we spill and the hues we blend that depicts a story of something more.
And it's unfolding before our eyes,
changing as the brush strokes
and sun rises
and falls
and it is beautiful.
Each day adds to the reflection of where the roots sink to dive deep,
a shifting of the dirt below making its way like we make ours,
like the drying of watercolors
or the fading of chalk on a sidewalk,
a give and take.
Roll over to wake,
live to write memories on a journal page that connect
and divide
catching the eye
like the sculpture behind the glass.
Mirroring more than can be ignored,
a glance to gain
a glimmer of hope.
Sharpened pencils
and faded erasers
are testimonies to the stories we write
and the art we live like breathing
and believing
it's all life-giving
from receiving
like a simple seed
or idea that has come
to be.
And it is beautiful.
Hung
or framed
or displayed
only to be found in,
with,
and under
grace,
like a celebration of freedom in the middle of a raging storm
or gallery
or Friday night
or the heavy
or the light.
Never finished,
only begun.
And it is
beautiful.
Each breath is another stroke across the canvas,
a scribble of life found within the madness
and the questions
and the waking to another day only to see this work in progress
is becoming.
And all of this,
it is beautiful.
Fragile
and imperfect.
Outside the lines,
free from perfect rhyme.
Messy,
but beautiful.
All of this,
it is beautiful.
~Tanner Olson
