Frustration

Medium: Watercolor on paper

Date: 1976

Bridging Longing and Fulfillment: A Journey Through Art and Experience

This piece is an intimate exploration of the tension between desire and fulfillment, both as an abstract concept and a deeply personal experience. Through the fragmented, emotive forms, it speaks a universal language of isolation, longing, and the human yearning for intimacy. Confined within a circle, the artwork’s visual elements echo a time in my life when I was searching for something intangible yet profoundly necessary.

Visual Elements and Symbolism

At the heart of the composition are two contrasting eyes, symbolizing the dichotomy between yearning and fulfillment. The red eye radiates intensity, its vivid color and irregular form representing raw, unrestrained emotional desire. It gazes outward with vulnerability, desperate to connect. In contrast, the half-lidded eye on the right exudes cool detachment, detached from the cry for connection. Together, these eyes form the emotional crux of the piece: one eye exposed, seeking; the other, inward, distant, and unattainable.

Below, fleshy, layered forms pulse with unmet desire, their organic curves evoking lips—poised to speak, kiss, or cry out, yet silenced.  The surrounding black amplifies the isolation of these elements, representing the emotional chasm that separates longing from fulfillment.

The Personal Connection

This artwork is deeply intertwined with a chapter of my own story. By the age of 30, I had never been kissed or hugged. Despite this, I had achieved financial independence with my writing and illustration earning enough money to sustain me for the rest of my life. Yet, I longed for something I couldn’t quantify—loving touch—even though I didn’t fully understand what it meant.  Now I had several dozen new painting that I wanted photographed.  I hired a professional photographer who was also a long-time friend. Around this time, I sought advice from a former priest and WPLJ advisor who told me:
“If you’ve never experienced loving touch, you may need to return to your emotional beginnings and start over, even if you are successful in other areas of your life.”
He repeated, “To experience loving touch, you might need to start over emotionally.”

Reflecting on my upbringing, his words struck a chord. I grew up on a remote farm, isolated in many ways. Later, I joined the largest religious group at the biggest university in the United States, where we were warned, “No kissing before marriage.” My parents’ divorce decree contained the stark phrase, “Inhuman treatment to children,” and after I turned 10, my stepfather stopped speaking to me entirely. These experiences left me yearning for connection yet unsure how to find it.

The photographer, in contrast, embodied everything I associated with sophistication and worldly experience. He had worked for Look Magazine, been married to a Martha Graham dancer and next to an Austrian textile designer, and spoke multiple languages—French, Italian, Spanish, and German. He had even spent a year studying fresco painting in Florence. His life seemed brimming with the international urban culture I desperately craved.

Yet despite my attempts to learn from him, our relationship revealed the emotional gaps I still needed to bridge. “You know everything about the numinous but nothing about the passionate,” he once exclaimed, frustrated.

This painting, created in 1976, captures my curiosity, frustration, and longing to reconcile my intellectual and emotional worlds. The tension between these elements both sexual and emotional—mirrored in the artwork—became a defining struggle of that period in my life.

Emotional Impact

This piece evokes a bittersweet ache. The unresolved contrasts—the open vulnerability of the red eye, the cool detachment of the sphere, and the pulsing fleshy forms—create a visceral emotional resonance. It invites us to sit with our own feelings of incompleteness, to explore the spaces between connection and isolation.

A Life Lesson

This piece and the story behind it remind us that longing is not just about what we lack, but also about the spaces it creates within us. These spaces, though painful, can lead to growth and deeper understanding. The interplay of yearning and fulfillment teaches us that vulnerability can be a bridge to clarity and connection.

As the poet John O’Donohue so aptly wrote, “The hunger of longing can make us more sensitive to the treasures that presence offers.” In both art and life, it is through our exploration of incompleteness that we find unexpected lessons, beauty, and, ultimately, a path forward.