Spontaneity

I remember painting this picture of clover in a cheap factory-made blue and white bowl.  It’s oil on canvas glued to a masonite panel.  I had gathered some clover flowers and set them on some concrete steps maybe twenty years ago …?  The light cast strong shadows that changed quickly and I painted this sketchy image very rapidly.  It has hung around in my thoughts over the years as a particular (peculiar) favorite and I don’t know why.

It’s not an obviously pretty image.  In fact, it’s the kind of picture that seems to require an explanation.  It is not finished, and yet I can think of absolutely nothing I would do to change it.  The white streak on the left, otherwise incomprehensible, is a patch of light that reflected off the back of the step above where the flowers were sitting.

If any picture I painted were a self-portrait, I think it is this one.  If anyone wished to understand me, well here I am.

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