According to Facebook, I posted this as a new painting seven years ago. At the time I was I still deciding on a title when I found out a dear friend from my Ozark hippie days who went by the name Morningstar, had died. We’d lost touch ages ago after she came to visit me in New York. I had taken her to the top of the Empire State building one night under a full moon. It, along with all the Times Square and high-rise lights, blew her mind. I then heard that she had moved to Texas shortly after she returned home. Doing a quick Google search into her death, I learned she had been murdered by her schizophrenic son. He had just been released from the hospital a few days earlier and beat her with a hammer, among other things. In spite of his obvious mental condition, he was discovered cowering naked in the kitchen and covered in her blood, he was tried, convicted and died in prison under suspicious circumstances. A horrible story all around. I felt the need then to name the new crow Morningstar in her memory. Once the original painting sold, it became the image on my best selling giclees and cards. So here’s to Morningstar, the woman, the crow, and her son. Onward.

When I started the bird series, it was in response to the 2016 election. At the time, I’d stopped painting to work on a writing project, so it wasn’t until the inauguration in 2017 that I actually picked up a brush again. The first birds were small and for the most part angry because I thought what is happening now was going to happen then. One would think that the paintings would be even angrier now, and a couple of them are - Abraham, the American Bald Eagle from a few weeks ago, is one. He was a repaint, so was the recent Loon, which also got much darker, but the two newest pieces that were started from scratch, are friendly and light. They even have hopeful names that refer to renewal and the arrival of spring. This surprises me. It’s been a difficult few months, given my on-going post-cataract surgery problems, et cetera. But there they are, Persephone, the Heron who was supposed to be blue but turned out purple, and now the pink Cockatoo, titled Peony, above. I thought about calling her Primavera or Primadonna, and even Peaseblossom, all names I might use later, but Peony won out for reasons that may only be obvious to me. Both of these paintings, besides their heat and palette, are much bigger than what I’m accustomed to, which means bigger brushes and bolder mark-making, so perhaps having to adapt to not being able to see close-up very well now, is a blessing, as they say, in disguise. I did, however, get a new prescription for lenses that should correct all the vision issues at my surgical followup with the eye doctor yesterday. Hopefully I like the new frames I’ve picked out and will finally be able to see what I’m doing again. I’ll prime new panels to paint on today, it would be logical to do another colorful piece, but I feel a Snowy Owl or a pale Egyptian Vulture coming on. Fingers crossed that the new glasses are ready in time for my upcoming visit to the UK. I won’t be taking the laptop this time because of my not so irrational fear of US Customs, but I’ll pass on getting a burner phone and just shut my regular one down when I get on the plane heading home instead. So as my friend Kevin likes to say - Onward.