Need a Bail Out or a Crockpot?

     Did you ever want to bail out of something that seemed impossible? I have. Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir must have felt that way, too, when he attempted what no other French Impressionist had accomplished: a massive painting combining still life with landscape and portraiture. Over a two-year period, he changed the landscape, changed the clothing, changed food on the table, and repositioned his fourteen models, even painting out a woman who exasperated him.     
     “One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one’s capacity,” Renoir wrote while working on it. He persevered, and his “Luncheon of the Boating Party” remains one of the best loved paintings in the world. It’s one of my favorites, too, because it reminds me of how hard some things can be. Sometimes it’s projects that are tough. Or relationships. Or a job that’s killing us. There are times we should bail out. But other situations are like Renoir’s painting, requiring perseverance.     
​     So for this new year, I’m asking myself what to let go of and what to keep persevering in until, in its own way, its a masterpiece.