Another preview of May....

Still Life I - Wine Glass and Diary - acrylic on panel - 16x16 - 2015

There are "objects" in many of my paintings - fans, furniture, objets d'art, jewelry, toilet articles, etc. - but never once have I done a straightforward still-life. In preparing my upcoming show, I thought I'd give that a try, just for the hell of it, eh? And I have to say, working on these two little still-lifes was the most fun I've had painting in years. Unlike my usual pattern of having to force myself to sit down and start painting, I just couldn't wait to get back to these, each and every day I was working on them. There was some strange kind of joy I found in just describing the shape and color and texture of the different materials.

One of the dwindling number of hand-blown Hungarian - or was it Rumanian?... Bulgarian...? - glasses
which I've had since the early Eighties, purchased not long after I moved out to live on my own.

The back side of my grandmother's diary from 1930-32, when she was finishing high school and starting college.
I bought G the Chinese brass Feng Shui "lucky gourd" - Wu Lou or Hu Lu - in an import store a few years back.

This little glass ball has a silvery, iridescent surface; I love how the light shines through red,
anyway. It was salvaged from an otherwise very ugly hummingbird feeder that was briefly in
my possession. (And which, apparently, I cannot quite admit to having purchased.)

Unlike some, I don't believe there's any correlation between ultimately successful art and the artist's experience while making it, whether they suffered to accomplish what they did or loved every second of it. And I don't know how the "art-buying public" will respond to what I've come up with. They might just think these paintings are rather boring, too "standard", being devoid of the content - story - that my work usually has. But I'm rather thrilled that, regardless of the outcome, just this once I was really able to find great pleasure and satisfaction in the process.

Still Life II - Lemon and Turtle - acrylic on panel - 12x12 - 2015.
The Chinese dish, the pottery, and the float all came to me from my dear Grandmother Betty.

I bought the little porcelain turtle in the gift shop of Portland's Chinese Garden, while I was visiting with my grandmother.
It's supposed to bring good luck, and is meant to be carried about in one's pocket.

The scan doesn't do full justice to the interplay of blues and greens in the various objects - the pottery, the inside of the bowl, the float,
the reflection of color onto the underside of the lemon - nor to the warmth of the lemon's color.