Matilda

Sometimes, a painting sits in a space without being seen among other invisible paintings, not forgotten but just out of mind. Such was the case of dear Matilda. She waited without complaint, having been placed in my gallery on that shelf in 2008. I would occasionally pull paintings from that shelf, give them a varnish bath, and then choose the right frame. From the framing, if a particular painting qualified, they found themselves hanging on the limited real estate wall of the gallery. The story begins in early 2008 when I was involved with a gathering of artists painting and drawing nudes in Snohomish, WA. Once a week, during the primarily rainy evening hours, from 7 to 10, we would meet, mostly artists working with charcoal on paper. The model would take her scheduled breaks, and we worked around those breaks. The hardest part was when I had to call her done and realize that Matilda and I had finally concluded those sessions. In our case, it totaled two sessions, each 45 minutes long. Matelda’s oil dried, and then she traveled with me from Snohomish to my Palm Springs gallery, where the shelf in the back room of the gallery became her home for the next 15 years. Recently, I lovingly rediscovered her and placed her up against a wall, propped on top of another painting, where a patron wistfully gazed upon her pose and asked for her price. I was firm as I shook my head no because, quite frankly, I was in awe over the work Matilda and I had done together, and it was in that instance that I decided to keep her, promising her that a wall space would soon open where she could view the sea of people passing through. It was not quite a week later when her admirer returned and said he wanted to own her, and at that second asking, I gracefully let her go. A few days later, I discovered I had Albert, who had also been patiently waiting on the same shelf. He will soon be resting in a frame on the gallery wall.