Old and Sold

"Goodbye," oil on panel 20x16, 2008 (private collection)

Once in a while it's important to go back and review one's work with an eye to how everything fits together. Just this week while engaged in one of those reviews I chanced across "Goodbye," a figurative work from well over a decade ago. Exhibited at an annual exhibition and sale in Des Moines, it was a work that seemed to come together on its own. 

Almost any painter, writer, or otherwise who is making things can tell you that sometimes they make something that almost paints or writes or composes itself. That was the case with this one. It started conventionally enough from a reference snapshot of a rainy street. That accounts for the limited palette, which I chose almost instinctively. Another feature of this one is the value pattern of very dark foreground figures against a lighter background. While I was painting this at some point the figure in the far background showed up and the couple on the left under a single umbrella did too, with the body language as you see it. None of these effects reached the level of conscious, verbal thought. They simply came off my paintbrushes. 

This was my first exhibition in a local women's club show and sale. Someone liked it and took it home.