Once In a Blue Moon

15 x 24 oil on panel

While walking in my neighborhood I noticed a house with these old shutters resting on the side of the house. I got up the nerve to ask the neighbors whom I had never talked to before if I could borrow the old shutter. I had to explain that I was a still life artist and that I wanted to use it as part of my painting. They looked at me weird but lent me to old shutter.

I have long wanted to make a painting inspired Joseph Cornell’s boxes and took this opportunity to set up the still life with his boxes in mind. I combined the old medicine bottles with the eggs to reference the cycles of the moon. I also liked the cast of the hand with the fingers crossed; it reminded me of broken promises which was the working name of the painting.
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Cornell’s glazed boxes contain assemblages of found objects that have mysterious and poetic associations.

Planet Set, Tête Etoilée, Giuditta Pasta (dédicace) 1950
Mixed media object: 305 x 457 x 102 mm