The first memory is of a drawing I made repetitively when I was little. The elements were always the same: beautiful girls in ball gowns in a landscape of fruit trees with a stream running through. It was the land of perfection in my child's mind.
The second is the memory of a painting I did about 10 years ago with approximately the same colors. The painting took about a month to complete and felt so saccharine, busy, and so... Baroque, I had it sanded down and made a different painting. That's how I feel about these elements. They are too pretty, too sweet for my tastes. Only this time it's simply a morning involved and not a month.
Way back when I was that young girl making those drawings, it was probably Easter time when I stood in the Hecht Company Department Store looking for the annual spring dress my parents bought for each of us girls. I fought with my desire to have yet another poofy dress, and choose one that was taylored and simple. It was a defining moment. That year I went from being a girlie girl (of princess loving and playing house variety) to a tom boy (Fort building, frog catching, woods crawling). In my childhood archetype, the poofy dresses went by the wayside. I kept the love of fruit trees and streams.There is a girlie, girl in there somewhere. Guess she still needs to express herself.
And as for the fruit trees, I present to you an Arkansas Black.
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