Oil on canvas, 36"x 24"
I started this canvas when I was in need of consolation. The sunflowers were so lovely, they lifted my spirit. They were in a vase I purchased from a former painter turned ceramicist, Caroline Blackburn. The sculpture has been in the family for many years, by Adolf Odorfer, called "Socrates Mistress" and stands next to a ceramic cup I like to balance on top of a smooth rock I picked up somewhere. The two "fossils" are from the island of Cozumel, a piece of coral and a calcified sea shell. These items are arranged on a table that belonged to my mother, with it's green leather top and painted wood rim that I "distressed" years ago by sanding away the painted surface. All of the objects, therefore, hold particular meaning for me and provided the comfort I was searching for while I painted them. I dedicated the painting to my brother-in-law, Rollin Pickford, a much more accomplished painter than am I--a watercolorist of national stature but of extreme humility and poetic spirit. He died a day before this painting was finished, at the ripe old age of 98, and when I heard the news I couldn't add another stroke or even sign it--for reasons that still elude me.
