This year 2011 started off with a gift from a gift that keeps on giving, my painting “Sisters”.
“Sisters” was painted back in 1999 for an upcoming show I was going to be a part of in Coral Gables Florida, well it never made it to Coral Gables. Soon after it was painted, it was purchased on behalf of the Paradise Island Promotion Board for a permanent art display at The Lynden Pindling International Airport in Nassau. The remark made at the time was that it was “museum quality” which for me was the biggest compliment I thought I could ever have received.
Claudette and sister Rose
Ever since it was hung at the airport, it has been a source of abundance for me (monetary and otherwise). Earlier this year (11 years later!), it graced the cover of the 2010 Woman Speak Journal, an anthology of work by woman writers and artists of the Caribbean. People from all over the world see it as they arrive in Nassau and I have and continue to receive letters and e-mails from everyday people and celebrities alike expressing their delight and reaction to the painting. Many purchase prints, and a few have requested commissions, as was the case on the eve of 2011. A gentleman and his wife who have three daughters had travelled to Nassau over Christmas saw it at the airport and just had to have their very own full scale original version. So that’s how my year began, painting a new version of “Sisters”. It has since been completed and sent off to its new home all the way in Santa Barbara California. In fact the very first commission of it that I did went off to San Jose, California and there is one hanging somewhere in Chicago as well! And by the way, changes are always made to make each commission an original in its own right.
I’m relating all of this to say that a painting is more than an image. It has energy and it is this energy that people respond to. I painted Sisters from my heart, inspired by all of the beautiful women who have been beacons of light for me along my life’s path; at the top of the list is my special angel, my sister Rose. It is to these women that I owe the success of “Sisters” for they inspired the magic that flowed from my heart through the brush to the canvas. I call upon this same energy when I paint commissions of this very special painting. An image may be reproduced or even copied by someone else but the energy of a painting emanating from a pure heart can never be duplicated.
So next time you have a reaction to a painting that touches more than your eyes know that you are responding to the energy of that painting and that if you should take it home, you’ll be taking home a constant source of beauty and joy.
Now go out and buy a painting!
