12.5x24
Original oil Painting on stretched canvas
 
In No. 2, I wanted to capture a magnolia tree I visited often after my kids were in bed. After a day of chaos, I’d slip out into the dark and walk past this gorgeous tree only lit by a few streetlights and the glistening moon. It was a difficult time in my life, and the blossoms only lasted a few short weeks but offered so much happiness.

I wanted each blossom of this painting to be a fragile testament to the fleeting nature of beauty. As you look over the piece, you’ll find some unfinished parts, a wistful suggestion of what might have been.

These unfinished parts, the gentle voids, speak more profoundly than any completed brushstroke. While painting this, I often thought of Emily Dickinson’s poignant words: “That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”

In its incompleteness, I hope this painting speaks to the fragility of existence—the brief bloom of a flower, the shifting seasons, and perhaps the loved ones who leave too soon.

Here, within these unpainted spaces, lies the heart of your realization. It is a reminder that life’s beauty is woven with its impermanence, that every moment’s sweetness is heightened by its transitory nature. The painting, hopefully, will serve as a note of the delicate, temporary beauty of our reality.