When Anger Hands You a Paintbrush
I picked up a paintbrush in a rage and attacked a bare panel like it had offended me. It sold in 24 hours.
Four years ago, anger saved my life.
Not the flailing kind. Not the dramatic kind.
The kind that shows up when you’ve lost everything twice and you’re staring at a life that was supposed to be safe, steady, and soft… and instead feels like the ground gave way again.
I had just hauled myself out of Louisiana after Hurricane Laura took every last thing I owned. I landed here in Virginia thinking I’d finally catch my breath.
Instead, life knocked me sideways again.
I was furious. Shaking mad. The kind of mad that isn’t even about the moment—it’s about every loss stacked on top of each other until the weight breaks something open.
So I picked up a two-inch hog-hair brush with a long handle and I attacked a bare birch panel like it had personally offended me.
No plan. No sketch. No sweet little composition.
Just raw, primal, honest rage pounding through my arm into the wood.
When I stepped back, I had painted a storm.
Four feet wide. Two feet tall. A wall of chaos.
Dark clouds rolling. Water rising. Wind tearing through the marsh grass.
I called it Hurricane Laura because my body knew exactly what it was doing.
And here’s the punchline:
It sold within 24 hours.
A woman here in town bought it. The same woman who now owns three of my pieces. The same woman who’s already claimed the Morning Glories the moment I finish them.
Anger led to opportunity.
Anger led to expansion.
Anger led to someone else saying, “I want that.”
There’s a lesson in that. A big one.
We’re taught to swallow our anger. Hide it. Pretty it up. Pretend we’re above it, especially past a certain age.
But anger is energy.
Anger is information.
Anger is a door.
If you direct it—not at people, not at yourself, but through you—it’ll hand you something honest, something powerful, something you couldn’t have made from calm.
That painting didn’t come from peace.
It came from truth.
And truth? Well, I’ve learned that truth always sells.
That painting now hangs in someone’s home. A reminder that sometimes the most honest work comes from the hardest moments.
The Morning Glories I’m finishing now? They’re the opposite energy. Soft, layered, patient. Nine layers of blue and white, built slowly over weeks.
But I needed Hurricane Laura first.
I needed to prove I could turn rage into something someone else wanted to live with.
That’s the double A life.
Some days you paint storms. Some days you paint flowers.
Both matter.
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Anger is also a creative energy 🙌💫