Shadow Painting Sally by Sally Taylor
Painting by Sally Taylor "Singing in the Shadows"
Song by Ben Taylor "Traveling Man"
Commission a shadow at https://sallytaylor.com/painting/
I started painting in college, nudes and landscapes mostly on huge canvases in rich red and ocher oils. After college, painting was replaced by music as my creativity’s vehicle of choice. My oil paints dried up, and my brushes stiffened like old bones and were discarded.
I didn’t think twice about painting again until Covid hit and my family and I hit the road. Pulling our 13-year-old son out of school in favor of his global education on the road was a big decision for us and I bought him a matchbox-sized watercolor kit determined to keep his artistic education alive. But he showed no interest and I quickly found the little painting kit a great comfort the way you might a service dog. It accompanied me to Australian cafes for early morning lattes, to lodges in the French Alps where I waited for my family to finish their runs, and to thatched Indonesian jungle huts where I painted to bide my time until the rains let up.
I found myself painting shadows. I related to their translucence of them; those silent, faceless, loyal companions who accompany their sources diligently without complaint.
Growing up in a family where the spotlight was reserved for more talented, more beautiful, more note-worthy members, the shadow roll was the only one on offer. I’m embarrassed to admit my own career in music was as much an attempt to escape the faceless, mute shadow roll as it was an inner fire to perform. But an Australian documentarian once claimed she wanted to do a story about me and my music but when her show came out it was titled “Singing in the Shadows.” It stung and hit home and embarrassed me.
But out on the road, in the middle of many strange, foreign, nowheres, I fell in love with my shadow. Shadow became my friend and company when I was lonely. It danced in ways and in places I was afraid to. It hid and jumped out at me like a friend on cloudy days. It kept me company at night under street lamps on scary city streets. It reminded me that I am never ever alone and that shadows, though silent and undefined are of great value.