The Painting I Don't have to Paint

I dislike politics and I have despised our current administration from the start. I started counting the days till its end, and only feared that a McCain/Palin win would be so depressing I began to have fantasies of moving to Mexico. I would have liked to have been in Grant Park tonight to see this incredible moment in the history of our country, but it was enough to see it on TV and I do not ever remember being moved to tears by a presidential acceptance speech like I was tonight.

I have always wanted to paint some more political paintings. I did one many years ago, working on it as Nixon was resigning from his presidency in disgrace. What a low moment in our history!

This painting is called "Watergate" and it illustrates the president's house of cards which has tumbled down, the Joker landing on top of the pile.

I "see" paintings in my mind and then I have to figure out how to paint them. Some time after 911 I "saw" the painting I would have painted at the time. It has been an image that lingered in my mind ever since. Why didn't I paint it then? I ask myself that question often, and I think it had to do with many post 911 images that artists were moved to paint which I found rather sentimental and downright silly, many of which were based on some very moving photographs which didn't work when translated into paintings. The whole nightmare of what happened on 911 is still too fresh in me, and working on a painting with that intensity would evoke too many emotions that I'm not ready to deal with at this time in my life.

After the horror of the 2004 election I toyed with the idea of painting a "mourning" painting which has echoed in and out of my conscious mind very often, and recently I began to gear up to get ready to start on it after this election which I feared would be another horror show of Republican trickery and fiddling with the results. In fact I recently bought a tube of black paint which I knew was necessary for this painting. I was for Obama from the day he announced his candidacy and so tonight I am elated with this victory and feel that my "mourning" painting can now be put on the back burner for another time and place. I feel hope and excitement for a shift of energy that I hope touches every person in the world tonight.

The strong imagery was going to be very difficult to achieve for this painting, so I am relieved that I don't have to do it! It involved making a black see through flag which partially obscured a statue of liberty with her head cut off. Yeah, I know...say what you like! It would have been another painting that I could not sell or show in this section of the world in public places. Oh well....tonight I am very happy that I can keep on painting my fruits and vegetables!