So back to my early days in NYC and this painting. In 2020, the lines in the sand have been drawn. You’re either an idiot or you’re trying to be woke. I painted this while waking up.
Category: Abstracts
Every step I can take to prevent Covid goes into my outside preparations (up to and including having only outdoor shoes and indoor shoes – and dropping my backpack outside my door once I return). Once the pandemic prevention measures are finished, I head to a park. This week I visited the Lilac Garden in Central Park (it’s on the edge of the Sheep Meadow – 69th street area, midway).
As if the sirens weren’t loud enough during the pandemic – the fireworks started! So many people complained about them, but I loved when they started up. They were proof that someone was living during the pandemic.
One of the ways Mark is remarkable is that he allows me to grieve over Bill, still, after all these years – he even looks for signs that Bill might be around, still, somehow, somewhere. The day we visited the White Horse, we sat outside (because, of course, this is the year of the pandemic). Not long after our beers arrived, so did a redbird. I’d never seen a redbird in NYC. Just sparrows and pigeons. Mark said, “Yep, Bill’s here.”
This painting was inspired by a small, yellow bird in Riverside Park in NYC – and the speech “Beyond Freedom: A Time to Break The Silence,” that Martin Luther King, Jr. gave at Riverside Church, where he urged us to consider the importance of people in our thing-oriented society.
One afternoon I took off alone to get away from to explore Brooklyn. This painting – Poplars in the City – is the result.
I still get a thrill whenever I step outside and see these rooftop water tanks, because they remind me that I am now a New Yorker. Something I am so proud to be. Pandemic or not.
I was stuck in NYC alone for my birthday, with only the five quarantine cats to talk to (I’d taken my daughter’s cat and all of her roommates’ cats under wing – adding to our already 2-cat house).
Before I moved to NYC, I’d never painted on a canvas larger than 48″ x 36″. However, because of the pandemic, I had nothing better to do but paint around the clock… plus, I had a new terrace, so why not. My first attempt was so-so at best.