Simple Gifts

This painting got its start two years ago (two years!) when I taped a sturdy piece of paper to a cafeteria tray and covered it with collage bits torn from a variety of magazine pages featuring a range of greens and a variety of patterns. It sat taped to that tray until today.

I found myself humming the plainspoken Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" by Elder Joseph Bracket as I painted late this afternoon.

'Tis the gift to be simple
'Tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

Simple gifts in my studio:

• mixing up titanium white, phthalo blue red shade, and glazing medium,
• veiling and collaging negative space,
• scribbling with India ink, 
• coming down where I ought to be, in the place just right.

All Are Born Radiating Light
4.25x5.75"; acrylic, latex, India ink, collage, and oil pastel on paper,
mounted on card stock and tissue paper
abstract
2017