Surrender

30x40 Acrylic on Canvas

Surrender is a surreal reflection of my time in Big Sky, Montana — a painting born of grief, resilience, and the quiet strength that comes with letting go. The creation of this piece was a psycho-magic ritual of healing, growth, and self-discovery.

When the world was unraveling in 2020, many were consumed by the fear and confusion of a pandemic. For me, the weight of another storm pressed heavier — the word cancer echoing in my father’s diagnosis. I packed my bags for Yellowstone, carrying both realities in silence: the fragility of life and the urgency to live it fully.

Among the vast forests and endless skies of Yellowstone, I found refuge. Nights under the Milky Way, mornings with bison wandering as if time itself bowed to them — these moments softened the fear of losing what I loved. Gratitude became louder than despair. At summer’s end, I faced a choice: return to the familiar, or step into the unknown of Big Sky. I chose the mountain.

Snowboarding became my teacher. Every bruise on my knees mirrored the ache of being far from home, yet every fall reminded me of my strength. In quarantine, when walls closed in and silence pressed heavy, I turned to a forgotten box of paints. The brush felt both foreign and familiar, and when the first canvas was complete, I remembered the language I had once abandoned.

Seasons kept moving. My father fought and won battles with cancer, and I learned to carve my way down slopes with a freer heart. Big Sky gave me community, belonging, and a rhythm of life tied to nature’s cycles. Yet, like storms returning to the peak, cancer returned too — again and again. Each time I faced it, Lone Peak whispered its lesson: storms end, rainbows arrive, and there is always something to be grateful for.

In 2022, I began Surrender. At first it was for an auction, but when the painting was rejected, and cancer shadowed my family once more, I put the brush away. I escaped into snowboarding, into movement — until I realized only painting could hold the weight of what I could not say. I pulled the canvas back out, reshaped it, and took it deeper.

When I was nearly finished, ready to bring the painting and myself home to my father, pneumonia took him instead. My brush stilled again. Grief hollowed me. Yet even in the ache, there was a quiet relief — his suffering had ended, and I carried the certainty that he would have wanted me to keep painting.

It took time before I could face the canvas again. On one of the coldest days of February, I stood at the top of a run called Broken Heart. My body burned with effort, my chest with sorrow — but in the rush of snow and sky, I heard it clearly: Surrender. Stop resisting. Let it be. And in that moment, pain became light, and I knew the painting was ready to be finished.

Surrender is not just my story. It belongs to anyone who has loved and lost, who has been torn between family and dreams, who has faced fear yet still chosen freedom. It is the feeling of surrendering to the mountain, to the storm, to the fire of life itself — and discovering that in letting go, you are held.