Through the keyhole

One of the blessings of working my way through the large pile of Christmas commissions is that I feel justified in taking a few days off to paint stuff on a whim.  In some ways, it feels like a working vacation as I've been able to go with the flow and pull back the number of hours that I am spending in the studio.  A puzzle in progress on the dining room table with attest to the fact that I'm allowing myself to get properly absorbed by non-painting activities, too.

After doing "Elephant Rhapsody" and "Vav's Prayer", I felt that it was time to take on something a little different.  I had taken a series of pictures at an old farmhouse back in 2005.  In fact, it's the same farmhouse that I ended up painting earlier this year.

The image that grabbed my attention a few weeks ago when I dived into that folder was a rusted doorknob with some frayed twine wrapped around its base. I decided to ignore the piece of wire, as it seemed to add a layer of complexity that didn't seem necessary.

It became my Boxing Day fun project.  Here's the funniest thing of all.  Throughout the process, I had the source photo upside down.  I didn't even occur to me.  When I was done, I asked Heather to come and look at it.  She's been spending more and more time with me in the studio working on her abstract projects.

She looked at the painting in total silence for several minutes.

"It's upside down," she said.

I flipped it around, and all of a sudden it was a completely different painting.

Sometimes a fresh perspective can change the world.