This month marks ten years since I stopped working as a graphic designer for international meetings to devote more time to painting. My hectic pace of life, of client deadlines and to-do lists, kept interrupting painting. The change led to forks in myriad unmarked roads. I had wanted to discover what might be possible, to cultivate my potential, and I was motivated to make the change by nearing 50. Friends were diagnosed with fatal illnesses; others were already gone. “It escapes, the irreparable hour,” Virgil said, two millennia ago.
I am painting more than before. I am teaching at Cambridge Center for Adult Education and Danforth Museum School this fall. Lurking weeds lie in wait to choke out flowers. The next decade begins.
ABOVE: Bird & shell, oil on linen panel, 8×8 inches, 2017
Apple core, oil on linen panel, 8×8 inches, 2017
Shells & plum, oil on linen panel, 8×8 inches, 2017
Green umber teapot, oil on linen panel, 8×8 inches, 2017