This painting was inspired by several poems I have been reading about losing things in order to find what really matters to us. Letting go, which is what E. Bishops poem is about, encourages us to lose all the perfect things we think we need and seeing who we really are without them. Following that vein, I felt like losing outlines and definitions of elements in the landscape helped me illustrate the joy, freedom and beauty of being outside in a more evocative manner.

One Art BY ELIZABETH BISHOP
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.