An original casein painting, on watercolor board
20 X 24". unframed
$450.00, ( plus $35.00, pack and ship )
( click on image to enlarge )
It has been over two months since the sun began its climb back northward, toward the
equator, but as always, during these last, unsettled weeks of winter, our inpatients for the
sun's return, grows ever stronger. A primary ingredient of our gloom, is the barrenness
of the world around us, at this time of year. With no cheerful patches of leafy greenery
and trees, to distract us from seeing the deterioration of our surroundings, we are faced
with all the problems of our own making. Views such as this one, where a row of houses
has been demolished, revealing the backs of the houses across the alleyway, are much
too common in our old, central cities. This is another of those neighborhoods in need of
an injection of funds, for some welcome redevelopment and gentrification, but there are
too many such saddened neighborhoods, and not enough funds.
As we survey the faded dreams and tattered remnants of our human ambition and
pride, it is the children who give us hope for the future. Children represent optimism and
cheerful, free-spirited confidence, unaware yet of the many hazards of life, but eager to
set new goals and reach for them, with energetic joy. The children in this painting, are
more symbols, than they are fully developed, specific individuals. They are three, little,
cheerful sprites, helping to brighten the winter-faded antiquity of their surroundings.
As the girls play follow-the-leader, one is holding back a bit, perhaps cautiously hesitant,
about climbing too high on the old wall.
This painting was another from my past series of casein paintings, which were similar
in their themes and subjects to this example. At least one of the other paintings from that
series, titled, Sandcastles On The Gulf, was previously posted in this blog. The setting
for that painting was a section of our southern, gulf coast, which had been battered and
flooded by a hurricane, but it is also a place where some resilient and happy children,
still build dreams of the future, as they build sandcastles on the beach.
