Barn Swallow

Barn Swallow / oil on black canvas / 4x12 unframed / $88 includes shipping

sold! 

IN THIS TIME OF ISOLATION, I have come to love the long stretches of days free of appointments and obligation. It is a joy to wake up in the morning and understand, in a way I've never understood before, that today actually IS what I make it.

I love that there is less traffic. Fewer airplanes. I love that the environment is recovering, even this quickly, even with just this brief respite. Can we not learn from this, and change? 

I love that this has forced an end - if only briefly - to the rampant acquisitiveness that has become such a hallmark of American life - the constant striving to get more, earn more, be more. Yes, some of this is good - but to my eyes, it is out of control in America. Greed is not good. Really. 

I hope that this recess will curb the stupid and pointless fascination with entities like the Kardashians, Desperate Housewives, E Entertainment and the entire celebrity worship business. 

Can we not look at ourselves, our families and our happiness during these months - even if that happiness is strained, and constrained, and stressed by everything difficult about all this - can we not look at it and realize that we just don't need that crap? That our own lives are so much more interesting and so much more valuable that Beyonce's, or whoever it is that is the current ons-named darling - people whose single monikers I am pleased to say I don't know. 

I hope that we find that we no longer live in a world where a $50-per-person dinner is called "cheap."

I hope we travel less, want less, sleep more, cook more. Value our family and friends more, realize that time is worth more than money. I hope that we learn and live and understand that what we want is here, like Dorothy said, not THERE, some elusive there. 

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For Today

"If all the world were clear, art would not exist."

- Albert Camus