My stretchers arrived and today's the day I begin a new painting except......not enough canvas! The two pieces of hemp/organic cotton canvas I have are too narrow so I order on-line a couple of yards from Near Sea Naturals thus delaying things a few days. Actually this gave me time to think about the painting to be. Would I pick subject A or subject B? Subject A was to be a scene from the Darfur Genocide. The image that comes to my mind when I think of the issues Darfur is facing id a dusty road strew with dead men, women and children and a jeep filled with armed militia driving past the bodies.
I decided to wait on painting this subject until I do a bit of research and form my own vision.
When I was in Washington DC several years ago, my daughter and I visited the Holocaust Museum. There are many memorable visuals in the Museum but the one that struck a cord with me was the pile of shoes. I don't know what it was about this pile of shoes that affected me so deeply. Maybe it's because I can relate to shoes. A majority of the people in the concentration camps did not share ethnic background, religion, generation or nationality yet we all wore/wear shoes. Tonight when I was making my nightly trek through the woods to the berry patch I looked down at my bruised and battered black shoes I thought how similar they looked to the shoes I saw in the pile.
