Beautiful job. They do feel like summer.

Beautiful

Stunning work, really like the play of the curves melding one into the other

So very beautiful.

Lovely Flowers & Floral Vase

you probably know all this, but I'll repeat them in honor of the painting: Poppies are also the often-powerful accents in paintings by Van Gogh and other late 19th C masters, because, wherever they are, they jump right out of the landscape like brilliant lights, and create dominant chords, strokes, rhythmic beats, etc. They take over half the landscape, those boisterous little creatures...Georgia O'Keeffe plunged into the poppy and made cosmic explorations out of the simple flower. And of course, those little red bursts contain some of the most potent medications of any flower we know, and have even given us the innocuous little 'poppy seed', friend to some pastries and to the homely, always friendly bagel; and which, if consumed enough, can produce slightly medicinal effects. So the little flower has quite a resume. Not to mention its association with WWI, where, afterwards, the poppy fields became a symbol of memorializing those lost in war, something you alluded to above. Not bad for a single small flower. (A daisy to a poppy: "Can I have some of whatever you're taking?")

Am I surprised, then, that you'd dive into the little bugger and make a symphony of it? No. To start, the vase is gorgeous: I'd pay you for that vase. You slabbed on whites like pastel, they're visceral and grainy. And they give an explosive heaving flow to the reds. The flowers on the vase undulate and squirm around each other with a ferocious intensity, in part because they're crammed together---they seem to be outside the vase, but they conform to the vase's shape (a common Carol choice), and so you've encapsulated the 'essence of poppy' in that little rounded bunch. The green leaves behind them are luminous---luuuuuv those yellows inside your electric green outlines. I mean if this were the whole painting, I'd be happy.

But of course that leads to the poppies on top---although---stepping back---you paint the vase many greens: the lid of the vase is a deep green, where, again, an object in your paintings take on the hue and energies of the plants around it. This 'symbiosis' is common in your work, and it's equally beautiful here. (Objects in your painting vibrate with the energies of the things that surround them.) I love how that vase seems transparent, but it still takes on the greens of the stems with a vengeance.

The flowers then come out of the vase, and you give all these rough strokes to articulate the petals' veins---your rough strokes add such visceral-ness to your work. And you capture the characteristic morph from deep to bright reds---some of which have yellows in them (here) and all of which collide with your bold whites. I like that you've slabbed on several whites like an oil painter slabbing on those titanium or lead whites (which feel like heavy whipped cream to a painter, they're the best), to give not just highlights, but triumphs. It's one of the reasons I've compared your painting to Beethoven. (I can supply passages if you want.)

And your background: Also normal for you, the atmosphere is so imprinted by your main subject---those symphonic poppies---that it resonates with them all over the place. There appears to be a halo moving away from the flowers towards the edges of the image---kind of an out-going radiance---and each ray contains all kinds of poppy-like blobs and color. Your backgrounds are often like 'reminiscences' of the poppies (if that word is appropriate), they're like memories, or better, resonances, the way deep sounds resonate in a cathedral, long after the sound-source has ended. You've created visual echoes, in other words. And they pile their way right into the spaces beyond the frame...Lots of small strokes there, the way Van Gogh built up sweeping lines with numerous small strokes.

And the background has luminous greens, pinks, and, of course, whites, etc. Then the bottom of the painting has poppies on the corners, beside your deep darks. The bottoms of your paintings are often roots, inner foundations. Your surrounding is set ablaze by the presence of the poppy; the way a room changes when a powerful person walks in, or the way a scene changes when the main character comes in, who has such magnetism, she/he changes everyone else in the scene. Zoom shows it all the more; and I imagine, were this larger in person, it would be even moreso. Your return here, after several months, shows deep discipline, a technique as sharp as ever, along with that inner explosion and penetration---which has dominated everything you've posted---having lost not one iota of its power; in fact as focussed as it's ever been. A brilliant, very moving portrait. The poppies of the world say:"Yep, she got us down, pat..."

So wonderful to be the recipient of one of your amazing comments. I’ve missed you and your vision of my work more than I can say. Thank you, Mark, for honoring me with your words once again. I have always adored poppies, especially the big red ones that pop out of the landscape in bright splotches of color and life. We have some areas in the mountains where wild poppies grow in profusion and when they suddenly bloom it always gives me an inner thrill. So far I haven’t been able to grow them at my home, though I’ve tried. The last time I got one big bloom, then watched a squirrel sit on its haunches and reel it in with its little squirrel hands and eat the bloom. It was funny and heartbreaking at the same time. Something about the poppy that is so bold and yet so delicate and fragile at the same time. I like the contrasts. When you compare my poppies to symphonies, and Beethoven, and ‘visual echoes’, I both blush and puff up at the same time. I have been doing a ton of art this year, but most of it has been an inward experience that I have not yet shared with others. And I am finding that being too inward is not good for me or my work. And so I simply had to break out of the self imposed box I’ve been in and create something big and bold just for the fun of it. All artists need response to what they create, as much as flowers need sunshine and water. And so I am grateful for yours and others comments as they give me the inspiration I need to keep creating.

Beautifully done! Shapes and colors are stunning. Stay warm, now!

Simply sumptuous and vibrant!! So tactile too. Your work is always so beautiful and inviting.