36 x 36

Oil on Canvas

I love this painting and its energy and feeling. I thought the laundry lady was gone as of a year or so ago and then she came back. I was at Nimrod and the berries were ripe and bright red against the green. So many of them this past summer that I just did not get away without painting them. Some people see flowers. What I see is the wind through her apron and her shielding her eyes form the beautiful bright sun on an idyllic day. I do a lot of idealizing in my work because I quest for clear concise unburdened thoughts. i wish life were more days like this. I think of artists like NC Wyeth and how his heroes were usually set in front of a billowing clouds, or that Maxfield Parrish had his trees against a perfectly clear sky at twilight. I have always been drawn to that kind of work, even from my smallest memories, and it is clear now that their seeing the world in their art as perfectly sunny and perfect was what I wanted. All these years later in my own art I just do the same. I am not much of an angsty artist. If I am angsty I am not likely to be working. So I try to avoid it.