Still Life on a Rainy Day

The first day of spring and it feels like the depths of winter. Blustery winds wrack the old growth trees making the neighborhood a war zone with downed limbs. My poor wild yellow-bellied finches desperately cling to their sack as it twirls on its nail, spewing seeds into the large mound of shucked shells on the balcony floor. I've been meaning to sweep up the feastings for days now, but with a storm like this what would be the point?

And besides, a day like this implores me to hole up in the studio... and just paint. Sitting down to my easel was particularly liberating this afternoon. Instead of working on pieces for my 2 upcoming shows, I grappled with a relatively new genre: Still Life. Using the burnt-orange raw, silk curtain from my four-poster bed and selecting a few white cosmos from their colorful bouquet, I went to work setting up the first still life in my Midtown Studio.

I have a bag full of new canvases tucked in the corner, but recycling an old one was a conscious decision to eliminate things from my studio. I've stacks and stacks of canvases with just a couple layers of paint. Today, my abandoned paintings feel like old clothes, dulled inspiration left colorless by years of washing. I held onto them because of the memory of how I used to feel at the moment they were relevant. But today I'm exploring new perceptions and I'm cleaning out the closet. It is the first day of spring after all.