Rhythm and Hues: Songs of Home

   Rhythm and Hues is a promising art show title for the Belmont Gallery of Art. I have four songs that inspired paintings: Home on the Range, Don't Fence Me In, You Are My Sunshine and Take Me Out to the Ballgame!  I can enter only 3 paintings, but I am not sure which I will choose. You can match the titles to the paintings.

      Don't Fence Me In:  A Southwestern lamentation: the eclectic cacophony of civilization and childhood drowning out "the wide open country that I love." The painting is built on a map of the Texas Panhandle.
    Take Me Out to the Ballgame: Next door neighbor, Lloyd, now a young man,was a child surrounded by music of his mother and grandmother, cello and piano performers and teachers. Lloyd was also a Red Sox fan. The image of his dutifully practicing the cello with his mind on the baseball field struck the right note of harmony and contrast.
     Home on the Range: The Texas Panhandle of my memory: a melody simple and uncomplicated but rich in mirage.
     You Are My Sunshine: As if there is insufficient sunshine in the Western plains, the ubiquitous sunflower adds its own voice.
(Click on paintings to enlarge)

     In the meantime, I have been giving thought to why so many people are more impassioned to paint all the time than I am. I think it is because they are busy doing it, making discoveries and having surprises which are gifts that keep giving. One loses religion, family, government, writing and art if one is not doing it full time.I am determined to get busier drawing, painting and printing to feel the passion again. At least I am seeing art and reading about it. I look forward to the MFA pastel show to color passionately again.


"One ought, every day, to hear a little song, read a good poem, sip a tasty wine,

see a fine picture, and if possible, to speak a few reasonable words."
                                          -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1836)