The strange paths of inspiration

I haven't been doing any daily work since the last mermaid, but things have been brewing. I had the opening of my first one man exhibit Friday evening. I'm sorry I didn't get any decent pictures to post...here is one with my friend Louise standing in front of the Dots Painting. Most of the Food paintings can be seen on my website.

What I really wanted to write about is how a conversation with a guest at the reception sparked an image that became overwhelmingly strong in my mind...to the point where I've compulsivley started a rather large painting during a very inopportune time. In my scatter painting series I have often painted loosely rendered rectangles as a background for the objects I depict. I never gave this much thought except that perhaps it was a throwback to some of the abstract work I used to enjoy painting many years ago...linear, rectangular shapes. I liked the idea of combining a little painterly abstractness with the realism. Anyway to get to my point, I stopped doing these backgrounds last year. The Ala Prima Cheese Curls was the last. I thought for sure I would only be doing "real" backgrounds from here on in...and yet. And yet this woman was questioning me intensly about my style of work and she mentioned that the rectangles reminded her of the faded ( or unfaded as the case may be!) spots left on wallpaper after a long hanging painting has been removed. I couldn't get the thought out of my mind. Suddenly all those backgrounds took on a new meaning, one I had been thinking about, but not really conciously. I realized I wasn't through with them after all. These musings then awoke an image in my mind....mostly about color. Several ideas I had been thinking about on and off suddenly crystalized. Wow. I had to start the painting. I wanted to write down the process while it's fresh in my mind. If I bored you all ..so sorry. This stuff can be quite emotional for me...which is why I paint I suppose. Here is the started painting. 36x48. There will be plenty of change, and maybe it wiill never become the image I have in my mind ( they rarely do) but at least I got something down....well there is a presketch as well, but I'm not showing that. I know I will not have much time to paint over the next 10 days, but I was afraid if I didn't begin right away I would lose the image...something that has happened too many times in the past.