Surviving the parting happens to be the title of another of my paintings, however, the name seems appropriate for the process of letting go of a painting after it is purchased (we artists do become attached to our works). Tasting the Apple, one of my absolute faves, was painted in December 2009 as the second painting in the Reading Rilke series. I wanted to work with warm, transparent tones. I wanted to portray a sense of fleshiness. I wanted the sensation of moving through the atmosphere akin to being absorbed into the landscape. VL decided to add it to her art collection today. It is so nice to know that this piece will hang along side some of my fellow artists’ works.
Sonnets to Orpheus, Part 1, 13 Ripe apple, blackberry and banana, nectarine….These all speak death and life into the mouth…I feel…Read it in the features of a child who’s tasting them. This comes from far. Does all grow slowly nameless in your mouth? Where words once were, discoveries flow, set free from the fruit’s flesh, amazed. Dare to say what you call “apple.” This sweetness that first condenses, thickens, and then, finely sublimed in the taste, grows clear, awake, transparent, double-sided, sunny, earthly, native–” O knowing, feeling, happiness–immense!
Rainer Maria Rilke
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