Somewhere Over the Rainbow
What began as a simple birthday painting became an unexpected exploration of belonging,
connection, and the stories we all carry.
24 June 2026
For my birthday this year I gave myself a simple gift: the largest canvas I’ve ever painted.
At 80 x 100 cm, it felt both exciting and a little intimidating that I almost didn’t know where to begin.
So I did what I often tell myself to do when I’m stuck: just start.
The first layer was nothing more than two shades of ultramarine violet blended across the canvas. No plan. No sketch. No grand vision. Just paint on canvas.
The next morning, I woke up with a song stuck in my head.
Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high...
I couldn’t remember the next line, so I looked it up.
“...In the land that I heard of once, once in a lullaby.”
Once I read those words, there was no question what needed to happen next.
A rainbow appeared.
Not a carefully planned rainbow. Not a realistic rainbow. Just broad arcs of fluid color painted over the violet background. At first I thought I might paint into the spaces in-between the colors with a palette knife. But instead, I decided to spray the whole canvas with water and let the paint drip down.
Then I scraped the colors from top to bottom.
It kind of became a sad yet pretty rainbow. It made me laugh. I certainly started, I thought, but it definitely wasn’t where I wanted to end.
I went back to my palette knife which I seem to be extra drawn to lately and this time decided to use modeling paste and several shades of each of the ROYGBV rainbow colors to make a happier looking rainbow.
I liked it much better, but it still wasn’t where I wanted to end it. So I turned back to the song and decided that the sky ought to be blue instead of violet.
This is how it sat as I brainstormed what it needed next.
My son immediately declared that he loved it because it contains all of his favorite colors and that he thought it should have a door or portal in the middle, with clouds on either side. I asked him if he could draw his idea out on paper. We collaborated quite a bit on various shapes of the portal door. Should there be a mini rainbow, a heart, a pumpkin or a unicorn horn at the top of the doorway frame? He drew out all the options for me to choose. Since I loved unicorns as a child, we decided on a rainbow unicorn horn.
I really loved his idea and the time we shared exploring possibilities.
I bounced around ideas of my own. Metallic dots everywhere that glisten like magic. Maybe a silhouette of a girl swinging under the rainbow. They were all interesting ideas, but nothing felt quite right.
The more I looked at the painting, the more I realized I wasn't searching for another design element.
I was searching for meaning.
What does a rainbow mean to me?
A day or two later, while sorting through one of the many boxes of newspaper clippings my dad has sent me over the years, I came across an article he had mailed me almost exactly five years earlier.
It was titled Faith of an Autistic Man.
I don’t fully know why, but I taped it to the middle of the canvas.
It can easily be removed.
I simply needed to see it there.
As I sat looking at the painting, I realized the article spoke to me about something larger than autism.
And larger than faith.
It was about someone saying,
“This is what it’s like to be me.”
And suddenly the rainbow wasn’t just a rainbow anymore.
It became a doorway.
An invitation to step into someone else’s experience.
The painting stopped being about a rainbow.
It stopped asking me what to paint next.
Instead, it asked me who might become part of it.
Almost instantly another image appeared in my mind.
Not another brushstroke.
Not another layer of paint.
People.
I didn’t want people to simply look at the painting.
I wanted them to become part of it.
A fingerprint felt like the perfect symbol.
Small.
Unique.
A quiet reminder that every one of us leaves a mark on the world.
The rainbow isn’t the destination.
It’s the place where we gather.
That’s when I realized I didn’t want to finish this painting alone.
At my next craft fair, I’m going to invite anyone who wants to become part of it to leave a fingerprint on the canvas.
Beside the painting, I’ll place a large jar.
Anyone who wishes can leave a fingerprint and write down a single word.
A hope.
A dream.
A value.
A strength.
A memory.
Something that reminds them they belong.
Something that reminds us we are part of a larger story.
I’ll collect those words and, in time, find a way to weave them back into the painting.
I don’t know exactly what that will look like yet.
Like the painting itself, I think it will reveal itself one step at a time.
When I picked up that giant blank canvas on my birthday, I thought I was giving myself a painting.
Instead, I think I was given an invitation.
An invitation to create something together.
I still don’t know what the finished painting will look like.
But I do know what I hope people will feel when they stand in front of it.
That they belong.
That they matter.
That each of us leaves a mark.
That we are all connected.
Somehow, that feels like the most beautiful ending I never planned.