This was a fun painting!
I painted it in a just a week – super fast in my painting life. It was done as a gift of appreciation for someone who is really generous to Joe and me. She is in my painting group and had attempted to paint a shell like this on a full sheet of paper herself, but gave up on it.
My mom gave me a nautilus shell – just like she was trying to paint – a long time ago; it sits on the vanity of my bathroom. I looked at it one day and had a burst of inspiration – I could paint this for her!
I wasn’t going to share it here, as it didn’t seem as “serious” a painting. But then the reaction to it was such that I thought, why not?
I gave it the name Divinity, partly because it spirals out like cosmic energy, and partly because it is like old-fashioned candy – and partly because it just fit.
22”x30” – July 2019 – Watercolor on paper.
More from the Places Gallery
Bella Serata
Joe and I stayed in the room with this window on two trips to Pomino in Tuscany: 2017, my dad’s last trip to Italy, and in 2022. A few weeks after we came home in 2017, Pop and I were sitting at their kitchen table. “Let me ask you something, have you left Pomino?”...
Home
Several years before painting this, I was hiking when the memory surfaced: I needed to paint that photo of myself—nearly 35, lying on a wall at my mother’s cousin Jacinta’s house in Croatia. No one remembers who took it, and I don’t remember lying down like that....
Lunch on the Terrace
I had lunch with my parents on the back terrace in the place we stayed in Quarante, in Langedoc in France - the same village where Blue Door is. I love the colors in the salad and wine and was intrigued to paint the reflections and shadows in the glasses and plates....
Lunch at La Valencia
In June 2009, I showed my work at the La Jolla Festival of the Arts for the first time. The festival organizers (the Torrey Pines Kiwanis) seemed to like my work. A few months later, they invited me to submit a concept for the 2010 festival poster. I was thrilled! To...
Blue Door
I found this blue door while strolling through a tiny village called Quarante in Languedoc, in southwest France. I was on vacation with my parents. Those 12 days in France continue to be some of the best days I've ever spent on vacation, and I love being reminded of...