Celebratory Bubbly

I delivered a painting to a new collector in Portsmouth NH just the other day. A 3-hour drive from my little house on the hill in Vermont. Up and out on a dark early morning. I thought about my drive down my remote road and how I would need to watch for deer. Mating season and deer hunting season coexisting in November. A curious extreme of reward and punishment.

I texted my friend that I hoped to be at their house just after 9am. I would be visiting my son in a neighboring NH town before driving home same day so my visit would be somewhat brief. My vision now challenged by night driving had become an inconvenience of aging I resented. I needed to plan my travels based on physical limitations and be back on the road headed northwest by midafternoon.

The commission a seascape. Based on a painting I had painted a few years back of Brewster Flats on Cape Cod. A favorite summer destination for our family but for me offseason strikes the finest note.

The composition and colors spoke to her, and we discussed how the palette would integrate with their new home. Their next chapter. Now empty nesters. Having sold their Massachusetts family home a few months ago they had begun again in a beautiful part of their new state.

Conversations swirled around canvas size since the ceilings were high and the fireplace was elegantly New England grand. A large-scale…