36 x 24 x 1.5" Original oil painting on Gessobord
 
GLUE STICK IN DAPPLED LIGHT glue stick and rubber bands in sunlight
 
I don't know if this happens to anyone else but when I'm painting, stuff comes up. Like, old memories I'd forgotten about, some good, some I'd rather stay forgotten. Maybe it's the long quiet hours at the easel with nothing to do but think. Painting is a meditation, I've heard it before, but it really is.
 
This painting is one of the pieces that came out of losing one of our houses in Hurricane Ian a year and a half ago. Not all of the stories around that time were awful though. There were some funny ones.
 
Mom's Christmas Gnome tree topper was in a plastic tub on the very top shelf in the shed. The shed lost its roof and the tub lost its lid during the worst of the storm. Somehow the gnome held on during the night and didn't fly out of the bin, it just stayed pinned, watching the horror of it all. In the eyewall of Hurricane Ian for 8 hours, where they clocked 200 mph winds.
 
He looks pretty rough, but he's a survivor. Cross Bill The Cat and Grinch Santa run through a garbage disposal and you start to get a picture where he is right now in his recovery journey... [more]