On this painting, I reverted to an older symbolism style of mine.   The painting represents 25 days of my life, from beginning to end, from late 2013 through early 2014. 

This painting started as my way of dealing with a recent upsetting event.  I began writing words all over the canvas.  They were descriptive words about the previous 25 days.  I then added colors and images on top of the words.  It was very abstract.

Every Wednesday, I would show the progression of this painting to my friend, Friar Tim.  He first saw the very very dark side of this painting.  He said it was good.  "You can't understand light unless you've seen darkness,"  he said.  He encouraged me to paint through the dark side of this painting.  "Let the darkess work," he said.

Brother Tim eventually saw the painting shed some of the dark images and the Blue Jay emerge.  He said, "I know that it is a Blue Jay, not a Dove, but, it reminds me of a Dove, which symbolizes the Holy Spirit!"

I told Brother Tim that The Blue Jay actually represents the animal spirit of a person.  Hands let her go.  She starts  flying towards the mountains in the window in the background.   The window is small; it stands far away.  The Blue Jay wants to get to the mountains but has a long journey to freedom ahead.  He listened and nodded with understanding.

In addition to the hands, four other human components are seen in the painting:  A woman to the top left; an artist, to the low middle right (might be a likeness of me); a small man who stands over the right shoulder of the artist; and a patch of skin in the middle lower part of the painting, which has a tatoo on it.  All these were part of those 25 days.

I eventually painted a cross in this painting, just to the left of the window.  When I showed Brother Tim this development, he said, "So, the Blue Jay wants freedom.  Not just mountain freedom, but salvation."  Like the window, the cross is small.  It too stands far away.

Brother Tim had many other things to say about this painting, including an elaborate explanation about the history and meaning of Muses.

Several other symbols show up in this painting.  I won't explain now since my comments are getting long.

This painting is complete and I am a more complete person after those 25 days.  

I will be giving a signed print of this to Friar Tim.