In the spirit of the season, I have some fun and classy gifts!! There are lots in the gallery, but if you are not in New Orleans you can see some of them online. Art is always a good choice.
In addition to the small gifts, I have also been working on some new original paintings. Most notably, "The Girl in the Library". This one is oil and acrylic on canvas, and has a story to go with that paisley dress and strappy shoes.
I also traveled a lot, so I spent a lot of time in the famous Penn Station, waiting on the Amtrak train. I love soft pretzels and oversized fountain sodas, so Penn Station is a sort of heaven.
No one could have predicted, however, that my love of 600-calorie bread knots and 7-lbs drinks would have got in the way of my career as an artist. But one evening, enchanted by the promise of salt on piping hot dough, I set down an original painting I was carrying with me and completely forgot to pick it back up. It did not occur to me until I arrived home in Harlem that I had left the painting in the middle of Penn Station.
The painting was an unfinished version of the one above. I had some details to finish, and when I realized it was gone I was devastated. I have not found it to this day!! I did, however, have a low-resolution picture of it, and from that I finally, two years later, decided to sit down and (re)paint it. Now I finally have the finished original, and it is hanging proudly in the gallery.
So that story has nothing much to do with Christmas or Chanukah or Kwanzaa or any family winter festivities, except for that sometimes I imagine my paintings as little children of mine, and in a way I feel as if this one has found her way home for the holidays!!!