"The Dance"

Here is a photo of my latest painting. I finished it last week, and it's entitled "The Dance". It measures 12"x16".

This detail shows, what I hope is the romance of a couple dancing under the moonlight.



And here's a close-up of three cathedral windows. I had painted pretty much everything, including the figure in the window, but I just couldn't rest. For four solid days, I kept pacing past this piece. I couldn't shake the feeling that there needed to be a noose. Now, I'm not sure where that sinister desire comes from... Maybe I don't want to know? But at the end of four days, I couldn't ignore that relentless urge any longer, so the noose was added, and "The Dance" then somehow seemed complete.

I will admit that I think the addition of that deadly bit of rope makes for a much more interesting story between these three figures. And as Steve points out, it's not something that the viewer realizes is there until he/she inspects the work more closely. One of the music collage pieces in the upper left has text which reads "Oh dear!" Pure serendipity, but isn't that perfect?!?!

On another note, what wonderful comments I received in response to Friday's post about rejection! You know, I was thinking about this all weekend. It seems to me that it was actually harder for me to publicly write about being rejected than it was for me to get the rejection in the first place! No matter how strong you are, announcing it to the world is a hard one to swallow. It would have been so easy to quietly file my letter in the trash and pretend like it never happened. No one would ever know.

But you all lifted me up and made it okay. Some of you have faced your own rejections and some of you haven't reached that particular bump in the road. But all of you expressed your gratitude and support at my having written that particular post. If I was able to inspire even one person to "keep on truckin'" regardless, then that means the world to me! I promise you that I will always write honestly about both the good and the bad. You've shown me that it's okay to be human. It's odd to feel so humbled and so safe in the context of this giant world we call the internet. How can I possibly thank you all for that?