This is my current favorite painting. It all came from a single voice memo i recorded in July ‘22. It reads:

“New painting: It’s going to be a Norman Rockwell style painting of two kids in middle America in farm country or some [stuff] with a rocket a la bearenstein bears getting ready to blast off into space with smoke and all that [stuff].”

This is the painting that spawned from that memo. I could’ve gone with any subjects, but I settled on the 3 blond children because they could passably be myself and my siblings - OR my father and his siblings, as might be more appropriate. It really captures a sense of nostalgia for me, especially with that sunset and the golden hour, when all the colors are just a little bit richer, the smells are a little sweeter, and you can hear the cicadas chirping in the trees.

It has inspired a new series that is currently in progress - the second of which is called “Middle Aged Wasteland.”