Not Calm, Nor Tranquil, Nor Comforting

This project started in one place, and ended somewhere completely different. Since being away from home I have been thinking a lot about comfort.  What is comforting, what makes us feel comfortable.  I have been thinking a lot about what comforts I’ve been missing since being away.  Two things that are comforting to me are the ocean, and the night sky.  At home I spend hours looking at the starry sky nearly every night of the summer.  Here in Siena, I still have the sky acting as a comfort, but I am missing the ocean.

Moving from comfort to something different

This project started as a diptych of my two favorite sources of comfort, one that I have here, and one that I’m missing.  I wanted to paint the sky and the ocean as calm and tranquil as they make me feel.  However, on the last night of painting them, I was told that my home in Maine is being sold.  Another huge source of comfort, the one house of many in the past 7 years that I have actually felt at home in.  Because of this news, these paintings transformed into what they are now.  Not calm, nor tranquil, nor comforting.