Gold Standard

As humans we possess unique quirks that make us individuals.  We tend to select our friends, lovers, companions, and spouses based on similar quirks or appreciation of these unique quirks.  

Over the years I have enjoyed observing the weird, quirky rituals my friends and family go through before leaving the house.  I have established that everyone falls into one of four categories. Some are pocket patters - persons who lightly touch their pockets checking for essentials: phone, keys, wallet, etc.  Others are scanners - persons who scan their immediate surroundings for items that may serve of importance.  Another group are runners - persons who briskly walk throughout the house looking for something that is already in their pocket or purse.  The last group are heedless - persons who constantly forget or leave items behind.

My wife is heedless because she always forgets or leaves behind her phone, purse, stack of papers to grade, or lunch box daily.  However, she never leaves her lip balm, lipstick, or chap stick.  One reason is because she has hundreds of tubes strategically hidden all over the house, both cars, and school.  

In honor of her heedless nature I created a painting to show my love and appreciation for all she does for our family despite not knowing where her phone or car keys are.  

Gold Standard, acrylic on canvas, 18''x24''

I borrowed the image of Scarlett Johansson from a Dolce and Gabbana ad, but changed the colors to match my desire for symbolism. 

The gold lipstick tube represents the most important in Amy's arsenal of makeup: lip gloss.  She will not leave the house without applying a layer of balm or gloss to her lips.  If time allows she will fix her hair so silver and metallic black were used there.  The skin tones and background are flat colors allowing the gold and silver to shine brighter.  The red nails represent Amy's heedless desire to paint her nails two minutes before we are to walk out the door.    

Home

In college, Amy and I ate lunch once a week at the same little "everybody-knows-your-name" kind of place and of course, keeping with tradition, we sat on the same stools each visit.  This establishment was a typical diner where the food is greasy, the coffee pot always brewing, and all pies have sky high meringue.  I felt at home sitting on that stool for lunch. 

For generations people have created soundtracks of their life.  Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros have a song titled Home that's on my soundtrack.

The chorus goes:

Ahh, Home

Let me come Home

Home is wherever I'm with you

La, la la la, take me Home

Baby, I'm coming Home

I made a painting about this song for Amy.

Home 10" X 10" mixed media

The background is a green acrylic called "new leaf green."  On top of that I wrote the entire chorus over and over in silver sharpie  Then I wrote the line, Home is wherever I'm with you continuously with a white paint pen over that.  Last I wrote Home in black all over the bottom two thirds.  

The taller, black section on the left represents me while the shorter, black section on the right represents Amy.  The connecting letters in the middle represent the kids, Matthew and Emma.