It’s strange, the things that bring us to stillness. Sometimes it’s beauty. Sometimes it’s pain. And sometimes it’s the body itself, insisting — enough.
Five months ago, my world went dim for a moment that felt like forever. I passed out — a complete blackout from pneumonia — and in that fall, my head met the unforgiving tile floor. Nine staples, IV fluids, and a slow recovery later, I began a new kind of plein air journey: one that required no easel, no brush, and no canvas. Just patience, surrender, and time.
Recovery has been slow, uneven, humbling. The simplest things — reading, remembering, focusing — became delicate exercises in endurance. My thoughts moved like fog rolling in and out, softening the edges of everything I knew so well. For an artist who has always depended on seeing clearly, that was perhaps the hardest part.
Yet in that fog, I found something unexpected: gratitude.
When I learned I could re-enter paintings I had submitted during the 14th Plein Air Salon into this year’s 15th Annual Plein Air Salon Show, I didn’t have the stamina to paint something new. The rules allow re-entries, even past winners from previous years — a rare grace in this kind of competition. So I unenthusiastically submitted some of the same paintings again, thinking nothing of it beyond the small satisfaction of participation.
When the news appeared in my in-box, “Best Plein Air Landscape,” I felt quietly honored — and relieved. My painting Before the Storm had found new eyes again, proof that its life wasn’t over, that it still had something to say. It was a quiet reflection of its earlier recognition.
That same painting had received an award in the 14th Annual Plein Air Salon, as well as 4th Place in the American Impressionist Society’s 9th Annual Small Works Showcase during the same month.
Those earlier awards came a few months before my concussion — a time that now feels both close and distant — while this most recent recognition feels like life circling back with a quiet reassurance from the universe: your work still speaks, even when you’ve been silent.
I hadn’t entered the Salon for nearly five months. Part of me hesitated — I wasn’t actively painting, and it’s easy to feel invisible when you’re not producing new work. But this exhibition reminded me that art isn’t only about constant creation; it’s about connection. It’s about letting your work keep breathing in public view, even while you pause to catch your own breath.
It was, Camille, who first urged me to start entering the Plein Air Salon — just a month and a half before she passed away. “Enter every month,” she told me, her words both encouragement and challenge. That summer, after she was gone, I submitted my first entry — and now, each time I enter, it feels like a small act of honoring her wish, a promise kept.
So no, this isn’t an “I can’t paint” story. I can paint. I’ve simply chosen to step back for a time, to allow healing to take the front seat. I know that what comes next — the work that will emerge from this stillness — will be stronger, deeper, and more honest because of it. Healing, after all, is an investment in the art itself.
The Plein Air Salon keeps the top 100 finalists posted each month — what a gift that is. It’s more than a competition; it’s a quiet bridge between effort and recognition, between artists and the world. I don’t enter expecting to win the grand prize — I have so much yet to learn. I enter to stay present, to remind myself that art has its own pulse, its own life beyond the studio.
In a year when I’ve barely picked up my brushes, this recognition felt like a quiet reassurance from the universe — You’re still part of this world, even in rest.
I often think of Camille’s words now — “Enter every month.” They carry a different meaning these days, not just about competitions, but about showing up for life itself. About staying in the conversation, even when your voice is quieter than before.
Art teaches us to see. But it also teaches us to pause. Sometimes the most profound progress happens not in motion, but in stillness. Healing, too, is its own kind of plein air — an open landscape of patience, light shifting slowly across the horizon of our days.
So today, I’m simply grateful. Grateful for the art that continues its journey even when I’m not painting. Grateful for the community that holds me close. And grateful for the understanding that beauty doesn’t always come from striving. Sometimes it finds us where we are — tender, quiet, and healing — before the wind remembers its voice.
If you’ve ever had to pause your art to heal — in body, mind, or spirit — I see you. May you find grace in the stillness, and trust that your creative light never leaves; it simply waits, gathering strength for when you’re ready to begin again.
— Carole
