MMmm... I so enjoyed creating this little gem.  I love looking at it and touching it, too.  It is a fun piece.  With surprising bits of color and fabulous textures and a great balanced composition.  This painting is a strong expressionist image that stands on its own without considering the words or any possible content.

But I like the words!  This piece has a single word above each heart.  Above the left heart it reads:  Good.  And above the right heart it reads:  Evil.  Both hearts are equally colorful and dynamic.  The point is that evil is not often a big hairy mean monster.  In fact, I don't think evil is hardly ever ugly at all. All too often it is charming and quite attractive.  And good can often be ugly and mean, too!  ALL of life, ALL of our experiences serve a purpose.  There is a sexiness, a raw powerful kind of beauty in running wild.  Being bad.  Breaking rules.  Even in destruction and pain.  We have to find a way to make peace with that.  To accept the confusing parts of life.  The damaging impulses.  Death.

Back before there was television and mass marketing, folks understood the beauty of comedy AND tragedy.  This great colorful little painting is a playful reminder that beauty abounds.  In all experiences.  In unusual places, too.  When we stop confusing beauty with the mysterious notion of perfection, we are better able to embrace the miraculous nature of our existence.

How Beauty Abounds evolved...  Oh boy.  This is a neat piece that went through many transformations.  I applied fine artist-grade stucco to the left side and then used a variety of tools to remove the texture from a heart-shaped area.  Next, I used a palette knife and dental tools to build up stucco on the right side and create a raised heart that played off the recessed heart on the other side.  They balance each other.  When those textures had fully cured, I used brushes, palette knives, a rag, my fingers, and teeny detail brushes to create those beautiful ripe hearts and the rich abstract painting that supports them.

Beauty Abounds was created on a rigid canvas panel.  The edges of the panel have also been painted, so this piece looks lovely displayed just as it is on a small stand or decorative easel.   Or it can be easily and affordably framed as it requires no glass or matting.

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