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As with many artists, painting is what I do to keep cheerful and I have a day job that pays the bills. I'm generally an "in the studio" painter, having tried and enjoyed plein air but not found a way to arrange my painting schedule with enough freedom to make it a habit. Accordingly, I use my photographs as the starting point. Modern telephones allow me to have a camera available at all times, and I often photograph the weirdest things thinking I may one day consider them as subject matter.

My job involves meetings and reports and working at the computer, with occasional field trips. Some years ago I spent a few days in Jamaica on an environmental compliance audit for a client (I was an environmental consultant at the time). The client put me up in one of those gated resorts in Montego Bay, but the work was at their factory some 20 or 30 miles out of town. Here's how it worked: I would wake up, take a swim in the Carribbean, eat some outlandish breakfast at the buffet, clean up, then go wait at the lobby door. The plant manager would pick me up in his beat up 300K+ miles Isuzu Trooper and drive to the factory as though speed limits had no meaning and he just didn't give a damn what he bounced off of along the way. Jamaicans drive on the left and the city of Montego Bay has some roundabouts. Out of habit, therefore, I kept looking the wrong way for oncoming traffic when approaching a traffic circle. This inevitably led to my peripheral vision sensing vehicular missiles approaching from the way traffic was actually flowing, and I learned quickly to shut my eyes whenever we approached a rotary to forestall screaming like a five year old every minute or two.

But eventually we'd get out of town and I could pay attention to the surroundings. Unlike the Disney-like plasticity of the resort, this was presumably the "real" Jamaica. Oh how I wished I could ask the plant manager to stop the Trooper for a minute here or thirty seconds there so I could snap photos of the marketplaces, shanties, undeveloped beaches, people and myriad other visual delights that cried out to be painted. But they were paying me to do a job for them and I couldn't think of an acceptable way to bring it up and represent myself and my company professionally. Ah well.

The factory was in a little town called Sandy Bay. Hundreds of Jamaicans worked there making clothes. Air conditioning was limited to the offices and even there it was about as effective as standing in front of a melting ice cube tray. Behind the factory heading up into the hills were some one or two hundred little residences along unpaved roads, each one in varied states of construction. The locals told me that the homes were built in stages, so if a foundation or wall was unfinished it might stay that way months or years, until the money or time to complete it was found. Often, this might include adding more cinderblocks or partial roof or whatever to the next room or addition, only to stop work part way after the time or money ran short again.  The one constant was bright color, although sometimes too only part of a wall or roof would be painted. It was pretty.

Part of my responsibility had me walking the perimeter of the property. This afforded me the opportunity to take a few pictures up into the hills of Sandy Bay and the beach out in front of the factory. These are my only images of the "real" Jamaica. In fact, other than some tropical flowers, I'm pretty sure that I didn't take any snaps at the resort at all. I know there are millions of people who love such places, and the resorts are surreally nice enough I suppose, but it's not my thing.

This painting shows the hills of Sandy Bay. The woman carrying a package on her head might seem Hollywood contrived, but I can tell you she is representative. I of course painted this some time after that business trip. I'm glad I had the opportunity to see a tiny part of the country outside the resort fence. If I could do it again today, I think I would ask the manager to stop here and there so I could snap some photos of the real deal.

Then I might paint a few more memories.  

I type this early in the morning June 2. Yesterday was my birthday. A first for me: celebrating the life of a loved one before celebrating my birth. For several karmic reasons, yesterday was the appropriate day to hold my mother Betty's funeral service. Turns out to have been perfect.

We had decided to hold a very small, intimate, service at Hollywood Cemetery. There is a chapel - Palmer Chapel - incorporated into the mausoleum where Mom's cremated remains were to be placed. It looks out over the James River and is a perfect and peaceful location from which to say goodbye. Mom had always said that all she wanted at her funeral was that the Pete Fountain version of Just a Closer Walk with Thee be played. Two wonderful jazz musicians - John Winn and Lee Covington - provided just that and more as the beautiful and perfect sounds of clarinet, saxophone, and piano told Betty one final time that her wish was our command. In another example of karma in action, my childhood friend the Rev. Randy Lohr conducted the service. Dennis and I managed each to get as far as 95% through our brief memories of Mom before inevitable tears helped to send her heavenward. And, at the end of the service when Randy had just begun the commendation a mockingbird's joyful joyful joyful song reassured us that Leslie just could not wait one second longer to welcome Mom to where she has already gone.

A funeral is a celebration of the person's life. It was a wonderful celebration of Mom. I want to thank everyone who made it perfect. Randy, the musicians, and all the dear people who came. 

I turned 59 yesterday, so, yes, we then held another kind of celebration. The kind with candles and cake. Life is a circle. Yesterday reinforced that.

p.s. The painting included above is of a location in northern Finland. It has nothing to do with what I've written, so let's let that stand for the fact that THREE blog posts within the last couple of months have had nothing to do with my paintings. Enough sidetracks. I'll return to the point of this website next time.

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p.p.s.  I just reread this a couple of weeks after writing it. I find myself stunned, and a wee bit embarrassed, at how many times I used the word "perfect" in the above narrative. Usually I am a better editor than that. I have decided, however, not to change any of them. The service was perfect.