Woman In The Garden

I posted this piece as an example of an early oil pastel painting, but it looked lonely without a block of copy nearby. A story was called for. But to do that I must peel back a layer of the artist's unseen past. Here then is the story of a woman in the garden.

From an early age I've been fascinated by dark mysterious women from exotic locales; the coffee lands, chocolate lands, and olive-colored ladies from the Mediterranean. I kept travel magazines in my bedroom and looked at them over and over, transfixed by the beautiful women from far away places.

And just like that, those women began appearing all around me, starting in elementary school and continuing up to the present. Dark eyed beauties all, they possessed a certain magnetism that drew me near, but one glance my way and I instantly turned to tahini. Where in the world did these girls and women come from? Had I invented them?

Later, they even began appearing in my art, and always in unusual circumstances. Thus, in response to a woman I knew, I created Woman In The Garden. No other art work has had such an effect on me, and to such an extent that I felt compelled to get rid of it. I did not even feel right taking money for the piece, and eventually gave it away, very unusual for a working artist. Those menacing flowers in the painting are Venus Fly-Traps.