Salut! to a New Year

In Florida a few weeks ago, I watched a great blue heron poised in a pond, one leg up, neck outstretched, waiting in perfect stillness for a fish to swim by. Against an impossibly blue sky, the origami shape of a white egret barely moved a feather as it glided across the horizon. Wings spread wide, a steely anhinga perched on a pier for hours, as quiet as a sculpture.

I love the beauty, stillness and serenity of the birds. The women and girls in my latest works are very self-contained, serene, at home in their environment, much like the birds circling overhead.

On my easel today is the sixth in this new series of 16" x 16" oil paintings. Two storks have taken flight. The Costa Rican sky is turning a deep, unexpected teal. A young girl gently protects a fledgling bird in her hands, as its mother watches. I have just begun to block in the water.

This painting should be finished this month, if all goes according to plan.

A new series of 24"-square wood panels now awaits my brush. Images, ideas and stories are already percolating.

I've chronicled the progress of The Procession of Hope and Feathers in this blog for over a year. It spent a month and a half on the Mezzanine of R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, MA. Now it will get a bit more paint, varnishing, and my signature - and then I can call it done. I look forward to it leaving my studio and finding an appropriate new home. At 132" x 68", it is the largest piece I have ever completed.