August 2019: But a moment’s sunlight

Third 12” x 12” canvas in the Conversing With The Dead Series. All are on the theme of death, and all are done on top of disparate heavily textured and-or collaged paintings completed by the late Holly Cratty.

She didn’t consider them successful and didn’t include them in her catalog. I undertook this project with her widower’s gracious permission and trust. They are not about her; rather, they are my communicating in reaction to her marks and gestures

With these three completed and two in progress, Scott Cratty has provided the open-hearted validation for me to continue this exploration.

July 2019: complicated shadows

The second piece in Conversing With The Dead was meant to be (to my mind) a lighter piece titled “Go. Gently.” However the canvas had its own intent, and as it went to an ever darker narrative the title had to change. The smooth area was always envisioned as the night sky, with Orion visible as it often is out my window. As the piece took form, it made sense to add Mars.

June 2019: too early sPring

First of five 12” square canvases in Conversing With The Dead, a collaboration with a deceased artist who left behind -as do we all - rejected pieces. These five were heavily textured and with her widower’s gracious assent I opted not to recycle them but to use as a springboard for a series of meditations on death.