Long time coming: Wedding Night
It has been so long since I started this painting, I thought I would never be finished. So many other projects were always on my plate over the past two years, I hardly ever scraped out any time to work on this piece. It was a difficult piece for a couple of reasons. The figure in the image is actually my friend Janet G. Peckham. She was the first of our small group of friends to get married, and it was an emotional event for everyone. Painting a friend is hard because, let’s face it, you don’t want to offend them! The image of Janet standing behind the campfire was burned into my mind. I wanted her to look like part of the smoke, like she was transforming becoming something more. She looked so calm and at ease that whole night, but her presence was powerful at the same time. And sure, one could make all kinds of associations between a woman’s wedding night and fire, but the truth is this painting is not about sex. It’s about power.