Description
One day in May of 2004 my hubby Joe and I – on a whim – walked into a real estate office in the little town of Koloa on the island of Kauai, not knowing I was meeting someone who would become my amongst my dearest of friends. Stephanie showed us some houses on the market and we left for home in contract to buy one. Joe became friends with her partner and their house became a second home for us on our regular trips to Kauai. In fact, I think our trips to Kauai became regular largely because of them. Steff dug in the rich volcanic earth to put in a veggie garden on the land up above their house one year – and grew these eggplants – then we ate them as eggplant parmigiana! So perfect, they reflected all the green growing around them like a mirror. In the summer of 2016 I led a “Special Saturday” with the theme of “shiny things.” When I went looking through my images looking for something shiny in my world of flowers, fruits and other edibles this one jumped out at me as the one to paint. It’s really curious how something matte, not at all reflective, can appear as if it shines. It’s fun to see what we can create with shape and shade and color to fool our eyes and brains! As I was painting this one, I was consoling myself as I struggled by noticing that this might be the most challenging thing I’d ever painted. Seventy something big paintings in and I felt like I was taming a wild animal in getting the colors to merge and have smooth edges, while staying clear and distinct. I keep challenging myself – in another way – by looking for single-word titles for these paintings. These are “globe” eggplants – and this along with the fact that we can never be reminded enough that we all live on this one blue-green sphere flying through space together, and the name popped out.
June 2016
