You've seen this painting here before: a ladder leading into a stormy sky. I suspect that on the day I made it, I was feeling very sad... certain that the path forward was filled with darkness and despair.
I do have days like that. Not every day is weighted down, though, and joy does manage to seep into my life more and more often.
Kim Stafford, a former Oregon poet laureate, Emeritus Professor at Lewis and Clark College, and author of many books, came to my Open Studio earlier this month. Kim wrote the poems for my book "I Hope You Find What You're Looking For." I showed him the ladder painting and told him I had realized that if I just turned it upside down, it made me feel so much more hopeful. A simple rotation, an easy adjustment, a new perspective. We both marveled at the fact that a different way of looking at things can change, well, everything. Of course, sadness is more complicated than that, but I've learned that flipping things around now and then can let in more light.
The day after I saw Kim, I received a poem from him. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about the ladder painting.
Wooden Ladder for the Soul
Sometimes you need to go deeper, stepping down
into a cold cavern to find the bones of lost happiness.
Rung by rung your shoulders shed light until all
you have is what you feel. There your ladder is your
only certainty, as in dark damp you hold the hand
of warm wood.
Sometimes you need to climb
from a clench of mourning toward the luminous.
You are a bubble rising in the sea, a bird with wings
tilted against the wind. There the ladder lifts you
out of yourself through strife into illumination.
Each rung is a breath. Each rung is a heartbeat.
Rising rhythm is all you have to count your way
from sorrow toward a place for looking down.
This takes ribs in a body, limbs on a tree,
syllables of longing grip by grip.
it's all in how you look at it
12/23/2025
You've seen this painting here before: a ladder leading into a stormy sky. I suspect that on the day I made it, I was feeling very sad... certain that the path forward was filled with darkness and despair.
I do have days like that. Not every day is weighted down, though, and joy does manage to seep into my life more and more often.
Kim Stafford, a former Oregon poet laureate, Emeritus Professor at Lewis and Clark College, and author of many books, came to my Open Studio earlier this month. Kim wrote the poems for my book "I Hope You Find What You're Looking For." I showed him the ladder painting and told him I had realized that if I just turned it upside down, it made me feel so much more hopeful. A simple rotation, an easy adjustment, a new perspective. We both marveled at the fact that a different way of looking at things can change, well, everything. Of course, sadness is more complicated than that, but I've learned that flipping things around now and then can let in more light.
The day after I saw Kim, I received a poem from him. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about the ladder painting.
Wooden Ladder for the Soul
Sometimes you need to go deeper, stepping down
into a cold cavern to find the bones of lost happiness.
Rung by rung your shoulders shed light until all
you have is what you feel. There your ladder is your
only certainty, as in dark damp you hold the hand
of warm wood.
Sometimes you need to climb
from a clench of mourning toward the luminous.
You are a bubble rising in the sea, a bird with wings
tilted against the wind. There the ladder lifts you
out of yourself through strife into illumination.
Each rung is a breath. Each rung is a heartbeat.
Rising rhythm is all you have to count your way
from sorrow toward a place for looking down.
This takes ribs in a body, limbs on a tree,
syllables of longing grip by grip.
