Always

Original Sold

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Archival Print Sizes/Prices:

29″x29″ – $595

22″x22″ – $395

15″x15″ – $195

7.5″x7.5″ – $60

When I was in Healdsburg last September (2014), after setting up, I went to park the truck on a side street a few blocks from the venue.  On the walk back, I came upon a gorgeous Fuyu persimmon tree in someone’s front yard, loaded with fruit.  The next morning I took a break to go take some pictures.  Full of sun, bright green leaves and orange/yellow-orange fruit, none of the pictures I took called to me to be painted.  The next month, I was up there again to lead my first art retreat weekend.  When I was headed out Monday morning, I went to see if I might take more pictures of the tree – I’d not forgotten about it!  It had rained softly Sunday night, and things were all covered with droplets.  This image from that morning was the one that wanted to be painted.  But the background was not exciting – it was the grey of the street beyond the tree.  So I went to work in Photoshop to collage in another image from further back.  I know this makes it not “real” but it’s a much better painting for it!

The “fuzzy background” on this one was really fun to paint – especially the lower right corner. I played with painting wet-next-to-wet and adding in colors that were not really there, more hinted at – purples, blues, pinks.  It was the most fun I’ve had painting one of these backgrounds ever!  I worked on this painting quite sporadically from the start of November. Between teaching some weekends, producing and selling my first calendar, holiday sales events and then family holiday celebrations, it didn’t get much of me.  So, I didn’t finish until the first part of February.

I was lamenting how I started it in the autumn and it was meant to be painted then – it’s a fall painting! Then, it sifted in that it seems the perfect painting to be working on just before Valentine’s Day.  It’s all here:  two, cheek to cheek, still sprinkled with the tears of rain. The name for this painting had not popped out until one of the last nights I worked on it.  Continuing with my intention to find one-word names – if it’s the title of a song, even better – I poked around on iTunes looking up words that were coming to me:  “promise,” “embrace,” “vow.”  They all have songs written about them, but none were it. Then I landed on “Always.”  There are several songs with that title – Bon Jovi has one, and Atlantic Starr, but the one that fit was written by Irving Berlin in 1925 as a gift to his bride-to-be, Ellin.  Here’s Sinatra’s version. It strikes the right note for me. All-ways, in all ways.  The real always of being together and loving each other, one day at a time.

February 2015 – 29″x29″ – Watercolor on paper