This painting is about brandee’s journey to find tools, techniques, and medications. Lying on the bathroom floor, watching colored LEDs flash and change the color of the whole room, and listening to music is the moment brandee felt relief after changing medications. Long fought for respite and still, the fire rages. The passion, the deep care was all still there — more alive, even! Feeling calm and capable, brandee realized that she will never be calm in the way some mean. She’ll care too much for many. And those asking her to calm down, put it away, think about it less will undoubtably miss the colorful swirls.

Like much of her art, brandee tried to bring the feeling to the canvas as accurately as she felt it. The emotions feel like currents — while carrying you from thought to thought, it’s easy to dissolve into the crashing waves. It can feel nice to drift out to sea, but it’s hard to move and hard to take others with you. Vines of attachments grab the figure at one end as the other reaching to dissolve. She was told aid would arrive from the leaves and branches, but the currents call still. Luckily, meditation, medication, and other helpful strategies have helped her find a submarine.