Reflections on the Art of the Kiss

This afternoon I find myself thinking various thoughts about why humans kiss and the different types of kisses, contexts and meanings.

Late one night back in 2013 I found myself spontaneously (starting what would later become an occasional literal practice of mine) kissing a canvas painting goodbye before packing and shipping it.

I can remember the thoughts going through my mind. This was a painting from a wedding event – the first I had done after my relocation to the south.

The wedding was in Mobile, Alabama and the bride’s mother had paid not only my travel expenses (it was a five hour drive) but enthusiastically told me that I would be staying Friday and Saturday nights in the hotel where the guests had reservations. I had originally suggested she cover my motel costs.

The bride’s mother – Karen – kept in touch with me on and off for several months after the contract was booked and prior to the wedding. We discussed the desired content and logistics of the painting process that would happen the day of the wedding.

She reminded me that I was welcome to be included in all the activities that weekend, and from the time I showed up somewhere in Mobile, Alabama to the after-rehearsal party, though I was a stranger I felt valued and welcomed into this family’s joy and celebration.

Weddings are one of life’s most joyful events and represent all that is right in the world. Jesus performed His first miracle at the Wedding in Cana and the New Testament is full of spiritual references to weddings, banquets, guests, brides and bridegrooms.

Bridegroom is a term not really used these days. I just looked it up and confirmed my thoughts about the term:

“Bridegroom is the correct word in full. Groom is a contraction of bridegroom but is used so commonly nowadays that bridgegroom almost seems archaic and outdated. Originally, groom by itself means someone who attends to something/someone, so bridegroom really means someone who attends to the bride.” (Source)

That Friday night I was introduced to the bride and groom (Cameron and John) and various family members. I recall the rehearsal dinner was somewhat informal and in a clubhouse, I believe….I have vague images in my mind of a couple of rooms perhaps with spreads of food and tables and the lighting.

When I remember things, I often remember the lighting and atmosphere more than other details.

I might be mixing up these images from other events – as an artist I have done many – but I do clearly recall sitting with the bride’s father and having a lovely conversation.

He had recently completed chemo treatment around that time.

The next day, as planned, I set up my easel early that morning with a view of the deck outside the reception area and the bay and started sketching and doing an underpainting. I still find these type of art situations difficult – to simplify while working live and with guests watching –trying to produce something normally done from photos in the privacy of my studio and taking much longer time.

I recall they wanted a sense of the guests at tables but not all, with the main focus to be the bride and groom’s first dance. Also to be included were the parents of the bride and of the groom. We agreed that I might do a faceless rendering of the guests, a technique I had seen other event artists use. Getting a person’s likeness is difficult to begin with and sometimes, less is more, in this type of piece.

Since I started the sketch in the day time but the event went on into the night, and there was a full moon, I felt inclined to portray this in the painting. A big full moon over the bay at this evening wedding reception was an important element in this memory keepsake.

I recall the song they danced to by The Lumineers – Ho Hey …it is a song I had heard a few times and I liked it.

I always find it interesting what song a bride and groom will select for their first dance! In my mind’s eye I remember it was a fun one.

I can recall how John swooshed up Cameron’s gown a bit (which is why I selected a certain reference photo to portray them, with his hand holding the long dress. I also recall noticing the little girl in pink as she watched and sensing this young, admiring onlooker would add a sweet touch.

Sunday morning I was also invited to join those at the hotel for the traditional after-wedding breakfast. And then, I took the painting home to continue completion. I’m thinking it was only about fifty-percent finished but the guests had been interacting with me throughout that day and evening, watching it slowly progress.

I felt very comfortable and welcomed though I was basically a hired stranger at one of the most dear events in the life of their family. I was already Facebook friends with the bride’s mother by then, and also exchanged social media friendship with John and Cameron.

They have now been married eight years and I have watched them from a distance go through two pregnancies and births and had the joy of occasionally seeing images of them and their young, growing family and recent holiday photos on the mother’s page.

As I finished that painting in 2013, I thought I would make the sky transition from day to night – a non-literal abstraction I thought of that might convey the entirety of that day. I remember it had lightly rained earlier that day and I had seen a rainbow over this landscape with the city buildings in the distance on Mobile Bay.

I decided to include the rainbow (and have done that since in some other wedding paintings) and I remember Karen telling me how much that little touch meant because it was positioned over top of where Cameron’s father was standing!

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Anyway I’ve given a lot of backstory here, but backstories are so very important.

Sometimes it is the backstory that is the real story, in fact.

But I imagine readers are wondering…and how is this about The Art of the Kiss?

Stay with me, please!

As I worked that night in 2013 in my studio putting wire on the back of the canvas and packing up the painting and other related print items, I gazed at the painting and thought “I love this one.”

And I love all that experience represented to me both personally and as an artist.

And I knew it was an original I would likely never see in person again in my lifetime.

I would ship this off to the bride and groom and it would be a treasured family keepsake.

Only in my heart and mind’s eye, would I tangibly carry this beautiful experience with me.

And then…I did it.

In a sacred act, I touched my lips to the canvas and gave it a fond and sacred kiss goodbye.

The Kissing of Images, and Other Sacred Acts of Kissing

The idea of physically kissing an image goodbye had been in my reservoir of previous experiences, only this time the idea was being transposed into an entirely different context.

After my first divorce in 2005, I had been reading online self-help articles for grieving through a divorce and this one article listed a number of literal suggestions that might help one find various forms of closure.

As an artist, I am both quite metaphorical and quite attached to the tangible…and while we all process differently, I found the merging of these two things quite helpful and actually did two of the listed suggestions in 2005.

One grief suggestion was to buy an antique trunk and call it your “divorce casket” and as the immediate months go by and you keep finding difficult reminders of your loss – anniversary cards, photos, personal gifts and the like – simply put these items into the “divorce casket.” Save them for a time in the future when you might better sort and process. Some of these items, in a sense, belong to your children and grandchildren, even when there has been a divorce.

I wrote a piece about this in 2020 called The Divorce Casket.

The other suggestion from that self-help article was to take your favorite wedding photo and physically press your lips to your former spouse’s lips in that photo from your wedding day – a day that was full of hope and promise for the future that turned into immense loss and grief of all sorts – kiss that person you married goodbye. Bring closure.

Because by the time a marriage devolves into divorce, so much metaphorical violences (words, actions and more) have been done that finding real closure and giving that person one last kiss is pretty much impossible.

It is the last thing most divorcing couples would want to do.

I remember when I did this difficult but sacred act of kissing. When I allowed myself to stare long and hard at the photo of that young twenty-two year old and remember him, that day, and my own young twenty-two year old self…and I…slowly prepared myself with many tears to give him a physical kiss goodbye on that twenty-year-old wedding photo.

There were actually two photos I kissed, and my tears were released in a way hard to describe.

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I’ve had other experiences of sacred kissing goodbye in my lifetime. The memory of kissing my father’s face, in his casket, the night before his burial before the casket would be permanently closed, two days before my sixteenth birthday, really deserves more writing time.

But it is worth briefly mentioning here.

This too, over the years, became another sacred practice I have done at a very limited number of funerals attended.

While to some this might sound morbid, I do not believe that it is. I see it as an act of honor and connection, reserved according to my relationship with the deceased laying before me.

A number of times, when I go through a funeral line, again depending on the relationship, I will make it my practice to at least touch their hand. When I kissed my father’s face that night after the final viewing, it was entirely in private.

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The place of non-sexual acts of kissing is expressed in a variety of ways in different cultures and families.

In Scripture, there are texts about greeting one another with a holy kiss. (Romans 16:16) This is something that in American church culture is not normally practiced and probably for good reasons, although I have experienced this on occasion in certain church contexts.

I think it is usually in context of wedding or funeral events and the practice varies depending on the ages and relationships. In church context, for an older, fatherly figure to greet a younger person with affection, or an older motherly figure to do the same, is different than between other sets of people.

As I write and think about mentions of kissing in Scripture, it also comes to mind that Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss.

I suppose there is a lot that one could say about the Art of the Kiss.

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I am digressing a bit, but recently I am flowing a bit in contemplations about sacred things in life and sacred acts, so it all seems to fit in my mind.

And, I’m about to get to what prompted my thoughts this afternoon – really!

Today, I was preparing to send out another painting I became attached to and artistically in love with, a portrait of two dogs. I do plan to kiss this canvas goodbye!

I also kissed goodbye the portrait of a dear friend’s parents I finished this past year.

Ha ha…for those reading who may also be clients on occasion as well as friends…don’t worry. I don’t slobber all over every piece of artwork I do and send, even though I may love whatever I did for you, quite a lot, too.

Sacred acts are just that…sacred…personal…and reserved and practiced often in a very thoughtful and intentional way. There is probably another portrait recently finished and another almost finished that I will likely kiss, as well.

It’s the holidays, and I suppose my mind is going in those ways right now…this time of year is the time for contemplation of those meaningful and dear to us and this is expressed through gift-giving.

Exactly what it is, as an artist, that might lead me to kiss one painting and not another is something I can’t fully define.

Why do we feel closer to some friends than others in some ways?

For me, I think it is my relationship with that painting…which…also involves my interactions with the client, it might involve the content of the painting, how difficult it was or what I learned from the piece (artistically), and also, sometimes just some attachment in part that is connected to other things going on in my current personal life.

I’ve done a lot of pieces over the years of many types, and some I remember (at least intially) with associations of what music I was listening to while working on it, or what movie I was watching if painting on a coffee table, or, what audiobook I was listening to.

For example, when I painted St. John’s Altar in 2018 from Decatur, Alabama, I was listening to Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky on Audible. Ha ha…no real connection there to the painting other than it had a lot of meticulous, tedious details and well, I wanted to re-visit this classic from high school English readings! That’s a really long audiobook and I can remember visually working on the painting while listening to that…and the lighting of the room where I was working.

I am in a season of a lot of creativity and a lot of solitude, so it is a recipe for me to also write and contemplate. I appreciate those who take interest in my expressions and may actually read until the ending! And of course, comments below would be interesting and encouraging.

Writing is a valuable to me and I enjoy this new format where I can keep my expressions all in one place, along with responses of readers (as opposed to the plethora of Facebook writings/comments that get lost in time amidst other more trivial posts).

A reminder that you can subscribe to my posts directly here to be notified by email and save for later reading, also!

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I hope this reflection will encourage others or prompt thoughts in some way and though I kiss the dog portrait today with joy, there are some reading who may be grieving and may feel led to embrace other things I have written above, adapting them to their own needs for personal closure.

God’s blessings to you – it is still within the twelve days of Christmas!

While this may be “much ado” about kissing artwork, perhaps, like many who use their gifts and services in sacred and essential ways (from the sanitation worker to the surgeon…) I consider much of what I do as an artist sacred, ultimately, despite the often mundane-ness and frustrations in the immediate process.

And I might search my computer for the video of John and Cameron dancing that night in 2013! (I was unsuccessful) but I did find a couple photos I was tagged in on my Facebook profile by them right after their wedding.

What a joy to remember!

I actually found some interesting art images and other links (below) for those interested in further browsing/reading/contemplation about the history of kissing as a sacred act.

Now this next image I saw in an article called “For I Will Not Give You a Kiss as Did Judas”: On Sacred and Profane Kissing. While I just browsed the article, it looks like an interesting read and topic/discussion for those of more Catholic leanings.

I enjoy Google, sometimes! And here is another image that was linked in this article A Brief History of the Christian Ritual Kiss

Again, I only browsed the first sentences of this blogger’s addressing of the subject (it appears along similar lines as my contemplations perhaps…) but it looks like a good read on grief. Good Night Kisses Are Sacred

I was drawn to the Google image (used in the blogger’s piece above) of part of that well-known classic angels painting from 1890 “L’Amour et Psyché, enfants“….I will reference the complete original further below.