
Looking For a Little Balance in Her Life
Looking For a Little Balance in Her Life
30 x 40
2003 / #9
Like many women my age, I have lots of friends who work. Our children are mostly grown however and the baby years long past. On the other hand, I know women who are in their mid 30’s and have yet to start a family. They are still working or if not working in a paying job, working as super socialites and volunteers while also spending copious amounts of time on frivolous stuff like shopping and spa treatments. Eventually, they end up in the infertility clinic wondering why they cannot get pregnant so easily any more.
This painting deals with the day when the realization finally hits that there must be more to life than just shopping. My character is loaded down with bags and boxes of “stuff” while an unseen figure encourages her to buy yet another useless thing. The character is torn. She has taken a child’s outfit off the rack and is wondering whether everything she has balanced in her left hand is as important as what she holds in her right hand. Where lies the balance in life and what is the trade off for her personal greed of time and things?
Image wise, there were 4 faces previously painted on this character. Many artists would have discarded the canvas as ruined. The layers of build up and discarded brushstrokes are considered unprofessional (by whose opinion, I don’t know, probably the same “they” who say we can’t wear white in the winter or some such hooey). I was at first using a younger woman, but each face became older and more sophisticated in appearance. At first she was to be a ditzy young girl and the issue was materialism. But as I thought about it, and the faces changed, I realized it was an issue of choices that ran far deeper than what to buy. Personally, I like the history marks in the facial part of the painting as we all have history marks of our own only they can’t be painted away. I earned every one of mine and it was my children who put them there. God bless them!
30 x 40
2003 / #9
Like many women my age, I have lots of friends who work. Our children are mostly grown however and the baby years long past. On the other hand, I know women who are in their mid 30’s and have yet to start a family. They are still working or if not working in a paying job, working as super socialites and volunteers while also spending copious amounts of time on frivolous stuff like shopping and spa treatments. Eventually, they end up in the infertility clinic wondering why they cannot get pregnant so easily any more.
This painting deals with the day when the realization finally hits that there must be more to life than just shopping. My character is loaded down with bags and boxes of “stuff” while an unseen figure encourages her to buy yet another useless thing. The character is torn. She has taken a child’s outfit off the rack and is wondering whether everything she has balanced in her left hand is as important as what she holds in her right hand. Where lies the balance in life and what is the trade off for her personal greed of time and things?
Image wise, there were 4 faces previously painted on this character. Many artists would have discarded the canvas as ruined. The layers of build up and discarded brushstrokes are considered unprofessional (by whose opinion, I don’t know, probably the same “they” who say we can’t wear white in the winter or some such hooey). I was at first using a younger woman, but each face became older and more sophisticated in appearance. At first she was to be a ditzy young girl and the issue was materialism. But as I thought about it, and the faces changed, I realized it was an issue of choices that ran far deeper than what to buy. Personally, I like the history marks in the facial part of the painting as we all have history marks of our own only they can’t be painted away. I earned every one of mine and it was my children who put them there. God bless them!