After the murder of George Floyd and the worldwide outbursts against the horrors that have been going on for decades, June didn’t start on an upbeat. Somehow in my funk over the state of life, and with Covid-19 still imprisoning those of us cautious enough to avoid the public, a piece of art emerged. It took a long time and a lot of correcting and tearing up and starting over. I called it ‘Even the Clowns are Crying‘, and to me it speaks of sadness – but others have said it looks happy. In any case it happened and it exhausted me.
So the next thing I did was intentionally ‘light’. Always a lover of Magritte, I played with two of is famous pieces, his self-portrait where he covers his face with an apple, and his ‘Ceci n’esst pas une pipe’. This one is called simply ‘Pas une Poire‘ and gives me joy.
My third piece happened suddenly after a multi-talented musician I know asked me and a friend to listen to some music she had written and performed to get some opinions on what might go on her next CD. I loved all the the six pieces, but the last which she called Fiesta Bistro, and featured her lively, exotic and masterful flute playing, mingled into my dreams. The next morning I began working on what I came to call ‘Blue Rondo’ . I had no idea the central piece of this image resembled a flute! So for this piece, I thank Gaea Schell for the unconscious inspiration.
And then I went wild. I had a photograph of a dragonfish from a magazine. The shape and colors fasciinated me. I started playing with it on paper expanding the color spectrum and repeating the shapes. I wasn’t sure where was going with it or even if I would keep it – but then it came together. When I look at it across the room ow, it makes me want to dance. Not surprisingly, I named it ‘Dance of the Dragonfish’.