911 apple original art

This is a gourd- if you shake it you will feel and hear the seeds rattle.
Painted with acrylics it is 7 inches tall and 6 inches wide.

Bomb scare this Christmas eve has the TSA and our shocked memories up in arms.
I am putting this on eBay starting at $5.
My heart goes out to all the souls lost that September and ever since in the "war on terror"

Evolution of a portrait

I did a brave and appalling thing yesterday by trying to paint myself half undressed, at my age! Lately I have been reviewing my work and coincidentally mounting a mini-retrospective at a local venue. Surprising myself,it seems as though I have been painting nests in various media and with various symbolism for YEARS, decades... So it is time to really look, to really see what I am trying to say. Is there a way to say it clearly enough so that I can move beyond the repetitive nest? How raw is the experience? I feel as though there is a spiritual message I have constantly failed to properly convey. I feel humbled. I feel I have to get back to the studio...

Here are some stages and details to yesterday's experience.

I admire Alice Neel for being able, at age 84, to look starkly, and artistically at herself and celebrate the inner soul. Her painting is at the National Portrait gallery in Washington DC.

This is 18 x 12 inches, acrylic paint and map collage on birch luan panel

studio wall

Strange days. Where does the time go? Yesterday was a snow day... but after 7 hours painting today I realize that I am barely getting enough done in the studio. What should I be working on? There is the idea of GIFTS. Do I make things for Christmas? What value does the work have as a gift in these times?

What else can I afford to do? 

Started a store in the back of my studio in hopes to pay rent, bring more people in....and a few small items of my friends Rosemary and Michael have been selling. That is encouraging. 

Today I painted five paintings- three as gifts for neighbors and two that are larger and not finished and most likely unsell-able. They are figurative, symbolic, and intuitive. That just might not cut it on the commercial market. I haven't painted the figure so regularly in a long time- since this studio shot back in 2002.

 Strange days.

Trail of the nightgown

There are days I shouldn't get out of bed. My mind jumps to fantasies...dreamy mornings roll into steamy afternoons, and musical evenings.
5 x 7 inches, acrylic paint on nice thick arches paper