BlUE Monday

"Blue Monday" - acrylic on wood panel (baltic birch, uncradled),  18" x 11" x .5".  Ready to hang (back has been pre-wired for hanging).  Available here and at Artfinder.

There is a notion that creative people are absentminded, reckless, heedless of social customs and obligations.  It is, hopefully, true.  For they are in another world altogether. - MARY OLIVER, Upstream

Social customs and obligations have changed in recent weeks.  There is a sweet sort of dance taking place on sidewalks and streets.  Dodging and side-stepping and you first - no you.  Sometimes this is graceful and light-footed and airy.  And other times awkward with a stop-start-stop step pattern which holds no real rhythm.

I've always found myself to be awkward in the world.  Cues are misread, words spill out ungracefully and footsteps fall in the wrong places and with heavy placement.  Sometimes this is funny and dare I say adorable?  But other times, yep, not so good.  I do a lot of explaining.

Blue Monday

The Oliver quote above made me pause and smile to myself.  It is true.  I can be absentminded....but only because my head is busy thinking other things.  I am always thinking.  Thinking while I walk while I plan while I compose while I write while I paint while I water the plants.  There is a whole world of thought in there which I haven't yet tired of exploring.  Maybe that is just the lot of the introvert.  Or the fertile ground of the creative.  But in the new social order,  I will likely do-se-do instead of grapevine left.  Mind yer toes, there.

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About the painting:  painted directly on unprimed wood using acrylic paints.  The colors were mixed  largely to match a neutral eye shadow palette (an exercise from Pauline Agnew's Colour Confidence e-course), which were, in turn, inspired by a self portrait Rembrandt painted at the age of 63.  These soft, shadow colors are absolutely delicious.