Poppies on Black

Poppies on Black

Oil on black canvas, 16x16

sold

With my penchant for leaving paintings unfinished, or to put it another way, leaving the canvas showing, I got to this point with this painting and I just fell in love with it. Several people urged me to "finish" it. The black was too much, too distracting, too dark - but I just couldn't. Well, I just didn't want to, that was really it.

So I hung it, like this, in the show in Houston - and it sold. A woman came by the first day, and then came back later. She couldn't get it out of her head, she said. And the black, the drama of it, was part of what intrigued her. 

Before I began painting, I thought I knew who I was. I mean, I was in my 50s, after all. I had a successful career, a secure marriage, a happy home life. I was intellectually, physically and spiritually active. I'd done some stuff, seen some things, been some places. 

Now, I see that while I might have known who I was for the situations I was in, I really had very little idea of who I was deep down. There was lots of stuff in the way. 

These days, I am on a journey of discovery. I'm clearing the stuff out, keeping what's important, tossing the rest. I have an increasingly clear idea of who I am, and am increasingly happy with the person I'm seeing. 

Paintings like this - and all the decisions that go into them - are part of the process. 

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In Place

Here are two of my sunflower paintings in an incredibly beautiful display

 in the home of friends who are also collectors. One is 36x48, I believe, 

and the other is 36x72. I do wake up at night sometimes worrying 

that they will fall, but my friends insist that 

the paintings are safe and secure. Don't they look fantastic? 

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Hahahaha!!!

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Dog of the Day

It's Zeus, dog about town, at the Wachapreague 

Christmas celebration Saturday night.