Daffodil Dreams

                                                An original acrylics painting, on canvas panel
                                                20 X 16". unframed
                                                ( This painting will be in an upcoming exhibition at
                                                Buttonwood Art Space, and will not be available
                                                on this site until that show closes. )
                                             

                                                            ( Click on image to enlarge. )

     Daffodils are a member of the narcissus family, which according to ancient Greek
mythology, lined the banks of the River Styx, where Hades, the god of the underworld
ruled.  This year, in the American heartland, the flower's long association with death,
seems to have held another, prophetic warning about life's unpredictability here.
Spring may not have died, but she certainly went AWOL.  Winter has held claim on
us, right up to the onset of summer weather.  Here in the center of the continent,  the
Arctic cold fronts, and the warm fronts coming up from the gulf, are constantly battling
for control, and the people and their tender plants suffer from the fall-out.  So, with
Mother Nature being so fickle, it is always a toss-up, as to how much of spring's
annual, flower show will survive.  April even served up a couple of snow-falls and
deep freezes for us, after flowers and trees were already in bloom.

    A majority of the people in this country are not native Americans, they are the
descendants of immigrants from other lands, as are our daffodils.  But these bulbs
have proved to be a hardy breed.  Early pioneer women, who traveled from the
east coast, to settle the Ozarks, carried the bulbs with them, and planted them in
front of their cabins, to have a touch of home.  Now those early, crude cabins are
gone, and the worn-out land has often been reclaimed by woodlands, but each
spring, the bright, yellow flowers sprout up again, to mark the place where hopes
ran high.

   The daffodils here at the studio, were well budded-out when they were twice
blanketed by snow-falls.  I was quite surprised, when I saw that many had survived
the bitter onslaught, and opened up, bright and cheerful, after the snow melted.
Such loyal endurance seemed to call for a painted tribute to the ongoing magic
and mystery of these mythological, fellow travelers.   This painting was the result
of that call.

Tulips Sit Where Two Lips Sipped

                                               An original acrylics painting, on canvas panel
                                               16 X 20", unframed
                                                $400.00, - ( plus $35.00, pack & ship )
                                             

                                                            ( Click on image to enlarge. )

     Some viewers may find the little, tongue-twister title of this posting a bit silly, rather
than mildly amusing, but I'm hoping that a majority of them will fall into the latter group.
( I suppose that is an ego thing. )  But there is a kind of logic to the choice of title, if you
consider the original cause of the impulse to paint these tulips.
     Imagine, if you will, a scenario in which the gardener of the house has just finished his
morning coffee, and decides to go out for a stroll around the garden, to take a look at
some of the weather damages to his tender plants.  As he walks, he decides to save the
last of the storm-ravaged tulips, and bring them inside, where he then plunks them into
his coffee mug, still sitting on the kitchen counter.  And then, having saved them, (at least
for a few, last days of fading glory), he decides to use them as subjects for a painting.
After all, he is well aware that he may not have the opportunity to see them bloom again
next year.
     Something very much like that happened here, but with a much, less interesting
coffee-mug, and with a more interesting, morning beverage.

     The painting is an impressionist piece, emphasizing a strong interplay of light and
shadow, rather than a simply doing it as a botanical study.  Whenever possible, I like
to give still-life paintings, a feeling of mystery or unknown potential, so that the viewer
might ask, what more there is, to the story of these objects.

Echoes From Neptune

                                                An original mixed-media, on paper
                                                18 X 12", unframed

                                                            ( Click on image to enlarge. )

     Recently, I ran across this little, composition study, among a stack of  things I
had put aside long ago, as being simply practice or experimental pieces, or perhaps
things I considered unfinished.  I can see now that, as I worked on it, I was thinking
about creating different kinds of directional pulls, of lines and shapes, but I didn't
continue to use these same simple objects, in a more finished painting.  Even so, I find
something appealing about the color palette of this little study.  The brightly-soft glow
of the salmon-pink lining of the white sea-shell, seems to make the harmony sing a bit.
Perhaps it may make some viewers recall childhood memories, of holding sea-shells
up to their ears, to hear the sounds of the ocean.