Thoughts on Color and an Update on a Work in Progress

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 I recently read that the joy we feel at the coming of spring has a lot to do with the re-emergence of color,  and that's what I've been celebrating this week. These tulips sit right outside my front door.


Further down the block in Abingdon Square Park...rhododendrons in mauve.


And further on-in the Aids Memorial Park magnolias. It's been  a long winter and we really have needed this.  




In the midst of celebrating color I saw in the Times that Gianluigi Colalucci has died at 91.  Who?  He's the "conservator whose painstaking labor changed art history."  




He restored the Sistine Chapel ceiling by removing 500 years of soot, smoke and dust, not to mention the drapery painted over the private parts, against Michelangelo's orders, revealing astonishing colors--"apple greens, startling blues, rosy peaches."  Not every one was thrilled--some called it a desecration and I remember at the League the students of Frank Mason, a revered teacher, tiptoed around the subject, knowing that just to mention the word restore or improve could invoke another tirade.  I think by now it's agreed that the glory of Michelangelo has been revealed. Rest In Peace, Gianluigi Colalucci, you did a great thing for the world.

You can still read about him--it was on page A24 of yesterday's NY Times.


But enough about Michelangelo, what have I been up to? I've been working in GREEN, and as I said last week, I"m having a blast.  the home of the Irish American Society on Fifth Avenue is currently the scene of much conflict, so I've thrown cold water on all the fuss.

Here are some details.  I"m drawing the house as undersea scene--with water inside and out.  Here are the first floor windows and yes, there's a whale in the living room.


A Great Blue Heron, thanks to John James Audubon.


A White Heron,


A goldfish on either side



These fish need eyes; don't worry, they're coming.  I'm close to finishing-I want to put an octopus in the upstairs windows and  decide what to put in the attic.  So stay tuned.

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