Expiration Date

(A note about this first image: This painting is 12" long. My scanner can only scan to 11.75". As a result, I had to choose between using a digital photo for the first image - I do not care for digital photos - or making do. The scan cut off the beautifully irregular, natural black border that surrounds this piece. My make-do solution was to digitally add a black border which is not entirely accurate. To see what the actual black border looks like, please view the 3rd detail scan below. The border you see there actually runs around the entire painting. This is one of my all-time favorite paintings and I want to be sure I describe it as accurately as possible for you.)

Sigh... This piece is so fine. So emotionally full. So calming for me. It is a painting about death. But NOT a morbid painting. I believe in my heart that death is the gift that makes life so exquisitely rich and fulfilling. And when I meet folks who are empty and scared and tell me how their life is missing a sense of purpose or meaning, I can see right off that they have never befriended their mortality. Never made their peace with the finite nature of our brief visits to this place. The events of September 11th devastated me and profoundly altered me forever. I still feel real pain when I think about that time. But I also recognize that I was reborn that day. I think many many people were reborn that day. The folks who left this planet on September 11th did so to help those of us remaining to remember that we must also go in time so we better get our rears in gear and start living! Because everything eventually expires.

Expiration Date is filled with glowing warm color and rich organic textures. It also has some fine detailed line work and a wonderful symbolic dilapidated home guarded by two dead trees. It is my hope that this beautiful, unusual treasure will light the home or office of some fellow mortal out there.

This painting is the result of many different processes and applications. After priming the canvas panel with black acrylic gesso, I applied a layer of modeling paste to the area that would become the land. I laid a palette knife flat against the paste and lifted straight up to make some nice irregular peaks. Once that layer dried, I painted a bright, bold expressionist painting across the whole surface with palette knives (in the sky) and brushes (for the land). An image filled with brilliant reds and oranges. While that layer was still wet, I worked bits of green, olive, ochre, and brown into the land area. And when that dried, I used wide soft brushes to create that sweet slow fade in the sky. Finally, I picked tiny detail brushes to paint the engaging abandoned house and the wild trees and the important black lines and the words.

This painting was created on a rigid canvas panel. The sides have been painted black and this piece looks beautiful displayed unframed on a decorative easel. It can also be easily and affordably framed as it requires no glass or matting.

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