Aerial Tumblers

For sale $700
Little mists turned to showers. Swallows flew close to the flowing water but never crashing. Up and down then they veered away from us as we floated down the South Santiam. I drew them in pencil and was eager to paint them the next day. But you know I think next time I am going to go back to working directly on location because I like the directness. To keep the spontanaity I had to fight for it : I checked the flutter of their wings with the swallows flying in our back yard.

Great grandfather David Widler of Constantinople, Jaffa, Singapore and Shanghai

This painting is not for sale
The painting is about everybody who has immigrants in their ancestry. I have been commenting on what goes through me as I paint. Comments in this blog go back to December when a most unexpected notice was given it. My posting was picked up by Google and listed next to other references to my great grand father. Then a long lost cousin's son saw it and called me. I found a whole branch of my family. And I learned that they have developed the family dreams portrayed in the painting like singing, watercolor painting, writing books. But not in Israel at the old home place. In Tel Aviv a high rise apartment building is being built next to where the family lived. Recently there was an accident and the arm of the crane broke, fell and demolished the old house. Israel like everywhere is stretched to the limit as our populations increase and increase. New events make me want to add more people and the laborers to the painting.

I remember Mama

sold
This is a continuation in reaction to our earlier collaboration. I get into a happy joyous and intuitive mind space with my mother though she is not physically here. She has been dead for about two and a half years. During the last few years of her life we painted small paintings some taking only 5 minutes or less as she was so advanced in dementia that she needed assistance in every life function task. She had such a wonderful spirit that she could express joy and emotions and complex thoughts even when so limited. She could still be my leader as her recollection of artistic acheivements would surface as we worked together and communicated and bonded. Girl on Blue Horse, 20" x 16"

Borrowing not Plagiarizing

This painting has taken on new meaning in 2008 when I started seeing hidden dragons in my picutes. It is one of the paintifngs in my february 2008 exhibit, "Dragons Boogie Woogie" at the Keizer art Association's Enid Joy Mount gallery in Keizer, Oregon.
Giving some thought to my entry way to the dinning room and the grouping of paintings around this portal, I want it to make my heart feel closer to nature. And I want more, an invitation for me to look and keep on looking. I have tried some dark forest compositions with wood peckers but just now I want something lighter more of an abstraction as Matisse did. I love the blue birds nesting in our yard and the way they flutter as they fly. I borrow from Matisse and his blue nude series. I could keep playing and changing my configuration of paintings everytime I come back from a painting adventure and pass through this doorway.