Early Riser (6x6")

Acrylic on linen.

Signed and dated on back by Julia.

This piece was sold in an Art Auction Benefit, where 50% of the proceeds were donated to No Kid Hungry for COVID-19 Relief in April 2020.

This piece has marigold, ochre, and cream in a balance that feels like the sweet sunlight of early morning as it rises to noon. It has a hopeful joyful feeling.

When I created the West series, I was living in a small Brooklyn apartment. I was reflecting back on the past decade I lived with my partner in California, first San Francisco with its cool ocean breezes then LA with its glorious sunlight. And coming into a sort of settling down and calming after the abruptness of the previous year that we took to live in Mexico and Vietnam. We kept moving to warmer and hotter places, more sun, more heat. I was seeking balance, interconnection. After all of these nomadic moves, we had been moving to a new home every year, for a decade, I yearned to feel grounded. I looked back on the West with a fondness. I feel this determined and committed planning to these pieces. These shapes go back and forth between what is definitely there and what is open and bare. It feels very much like a tension between this logic side, what shape and color and composition is in the head and then brought to being by the detailed skill of the hand, versus, this bare and organic land, which just is and always has been.

Ships framed. See framing information below.