“Emotional Roller Coaster” 12×12, oil on canvas, $360.00

I’ve moved my studio outside and expanded my world by a few hundred square feet. Instead of connecting with extended family and friends, I am connecting with the occasional breeze and the sun’s heat patting me on the back. You can do this, it says. I find it reassuring until I get hot, and so move my easel another foot or two into the shade. 

I’ve painted another bouquet today. Another bouquet with another host of flower personalities– the plastered-on smile of the big pink one, the not-another-day-of-this white droopy one, the genuine cheer of the reddest of reds one. And then, for good measure, a whole lot of little buds that haven’t opened up yet at all. Except for the one on the far left. It’s just beginning to bloom. Even in that tiny vase. Even though it won’t last but a week or two.