this painting is sold

My next few paintings are straying away from portraiture; stand by.

As a little girl, one of my favorite things to do was to grab a street light pole and swing myself around it. My hair flying in the breeze, I would reach a state that felt like I was flying as my grip on the pole caused me to spin instead of just fall. I can remember clearly one day my grandmother scolding me for doing this thing out in front of her house.

“You look like a gypsy!” she scolded. I stopped for a moment and giggled, clearly this was not the effect she meant to have on my behavior, I wondered, what do gypsies look like? And then I decided, I liked looking like a gypsy! and continued swinging around that pole much to her consternation. Shortly after that, my father asked us to come back into the backyard, where probably, our gypsy-like behavior would not be seen by the neighbors.

The painting today is 9″ x 12″ and is done with watercolors. It is based on a painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau called “Crown of Flowers” of a lovely little girl (whose face I painted) with her hair just so and someone putting flowers in her hair. The painting is lovely, but the little girl looks like she’s rather swing around a street light pole.

I try to draw or paint every single day, it’s a discipline that I think helps me as an artist. I didn’t have a commission to paint Saturday so I went through the Shorpy archive of old photographs and found one of Abraham Lincoln. It was taken the year that he died. Perfect, I thought, and got to work.

Painting is an interesting process. The painter is completely engrossed, but the mind is still free. As I paint a person, I get to know them. But this man is someone we all know, or do we? This man’s shoulders bore the responsibility of the brutal blood bath we call the Civil war. He also agonized over whether or not to free the slaves, knowing full well that it would lead to a revolt. This past year I have read a lot of his words, and had come to the conclusion that if I could meet a president, Abe would be the one I’d most like to meet.

A self taught farm boy, his vocabulary was astounding, as was his memory. Many of the anecdotes I read about him alluded to his prodigious memory and his acerbic wit. He was so homely that he scared children, but once they got to know him, they didn’t want to leave him alone. He was merciful too, and pardoned many soldiers who had deserted, or worse, had fought for the other side.

As I painted his face, it was hard to ignore the fact that he needed a haircut, he needed his hair washed too. And no, I didn’t add the crooked bow tie, I was just passing information along, the President of the United States sat unkempt for a photograph and a few months later he was dead. I imagined him sitting for me and his being amused at my earnest attempts to capture him with paint. The most ironic part of all is the fact that I am older than he ever was. It was a great exercise and I feel like I got to know him just a little better.

How do you see Abraham Lincoln?

12 years later, I returned to Sersale with my husband and once again Pasquale and Angelina figured prominently in our visit. When someone broke into our car and the police towed it away for security, it was Pasquale who drove us to the tow yard to retrieve it. That was quite an adventure, and a gripping story, you can read all about it here.

I was sitting in Teresa’s living room not even a month ago when she asked me; “Could you paint a portrait of my parents, remember, from the photo you took of them in the woods?” Be careful what you ask for, now I’ve done it.

The reference for this painting was a photo my husband Donald Boothby took of Pasquale and Angelina as they were leaving the woods, having just gathered some porcini mushrooms.