17 September 2020

Inmates without doctors sans frontiers

 

mhg
   Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 15 September, 2020, oil canvas board, 30 X 25 cm


This was an experiment from the other night. I had gone out with an idea in my head (dangerous!), and without looking at the motif in front of me. I was trying to prepare a sky to receive some olive coloured clouds which I had seen the the other night. Alas, they dissipated before twilight had even set in. I was left with a delicious sky, like a sticky date but without the sticky date sauce.

But I like it anyway, and I was lucky to have exercised an unusual intuition to leave it be! So, I packed up early because the sky had died, dried up of any its usual vibrancy. 

I was also distracted by an acquaintance, an eccentric fellow who sleeps on the beach each night not far from where I work. He had come by to say hello, and then proceeded to discuss UFO's with a another person who had also stopped by. This gentle soul sees UFO's each night and loves to tell anyone he can just how incredible they are.  And each day I hear about how fast they move until they "stop on a dime" to hover over the horizon at leisure, only to zip overhead "glowing". They then return to repeat the same patterns all over again. As the weeks go by the UFO"s seem to get bigger, and go faster. I like this fellow very much so I just smile and feign a vague sort of interest. There are lots of curious souls who inhabit small corners of life around here. 

As I move through this contemporary life, I discover that it's often hard to discern the bonafide inmates from the regulars (regulars??). But I also wonder to myself if there really is a doctor in the house? 

At the end of the day; is painting this mysterious sky any different than watching for UFO's each night?  Imagination is everything, apparently.



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