When I was about half-way through this painting my husband mentioned that it looked like the place the girl that was the narrator of The Lovely Bones went after her story was told.
That had a fairly profound effect on how I finished the painting, and a title of a poem from Robert Bly pressed into it as well. “The fire of despair has been our savior.”
It’s a far more narrative painting than usual in my run of “almost abstracts.”
UPDATE: This painting is now in the collection of Debra Keith of Taos Art Supply. Debra lost her husband, Leighton, suddenly this year, and the whole time I painted this painting, I was thinking of them, and how deep and restructuring the grief process can be.
“Autumn in the Hereafter,” oil on panel by Melwell, 11×14