Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.
― Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Autocrat of the Breakfast Table
**********************
This new painting has been capturing my eye in the studio every time I mindlessly glimpse in its direction. It instantly wakens my mind and sets it into a deeper focus, making me look deeper into the painting as I try to ascertain what is there that has convinced me that there is something more beyond the deepest point in the painting, something that triggers thought and emotion.
It pulls me in and swallows me up.
I don’t know why that is, exactly. It could be the deep colors or the contrast of the light around the sun/moon/whatever. The simple forms and the depth into the picture plane?
I just don’t know.
But as the quote above from the elder Oliver Wendell Holmes ( the father of the famous jurist who was great man of letters in the 19th century) claims, it creates a sensation in me that stretches me, makes me want to experience it again, makes me want to know more. To feel more. To expand beyond the smallness of who I am now as a human, shedding the baser qualities that have marked me up to now.
And to stay in that expansive state, to not shrink back into that lesser self.
In short, I like this piece. As always, you might not see it this way or see in it anything that stirs you at all. And that is as it should be because I primarily paint for myself, paint to satisfy my own needs and desires. The fact that anyone sees something in them is a gift and a surprise to me.
A small miracle, in fact.
So, if you find something in this piece that stirs you, I thank you for creating that miracle so that I might experience it.
This painting, Looking Beyond, is 12″ by 16″ on canvas. It is included in my solo show, Truth and Belief, which opens June 2 at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.
Redtree Times 