Blackberries
July 6th, 2013
Cox Reservation, Essex Greenbelt, Essex MA
Oil on Canvas, 12 x 16 in

It was a 95 degree in the shade day, and the first day (that I had experienced this year) of Greenfly season. I had a small canvas so wanted to find something I could focus into, also wanted to find something in the shade. It was an exercise not only in painting but in self control – staring at ripe wild blackberries for hours without eating any. That much I succeeded in – maintaining my pacific, live and let live attitude to all living things – that suffered in the onslaught of greenflies who combine their extraordinary nastiness with remarkable stupidity – so a warning swat too easily becomes a mortal blow.

I haven’t touched this, except to scratch my mark into the corner, since painting it, and I won’t.