I've been bouncing back and forth between 2 different series lately. You know I've been painting landscapes like crazy and I'm still doing that but I also needed to get back to the Silent Voices series too. Here's the latest painting in each of those groups.

Calloway Garden

12x12

acrylic

This one is painted from a photo that my mother took in Calloway Gardens in Georgia. It's a little different than the other landscapes I've done. I hadn't done anything with such an abundance of flowers. It was a challenge but I loved it.

Below is the latest in Silent Voices. It's the most autobiographical in the series. Some of the pieces in this series now include prose. As I pull out the older pieces and sit with them for a while I may write prose for them also. I'm finding that it gives the paintings a new level of depth and understanding.

BFA

 (baby for adoption)

48x36

acrylic

Fractured and broken in shades of grey.

The stories are sealed, the secrets not lies.

A life hidden and changed,

kept in tidy boxes so as not to disturb

the shining image of others.

Black on red, the letters controlled.

The signs were there, sending two lives down different roads.

One life unknown, the other unseen.

Imagination and grief hold hands under the mask

until the friction chafes and burns

with the once a year flame.

The lids break open, the cracks widen.

The flames get higher, the ash deepens.

Take cover.

Let the fire heal and the wounds return

to the soothing shadows.