The Final Piece Pastel

Description

“I always did my sketches of Joey in the morning and I would see him many times coming and going from the barn with a pail or lantern in his hand, walking hunched over. This winter day though, it was getting dark and I saw Joey coming out of the barn through the snow flurries. The animals seemed frozen there, profiling him in the cold, huddled together. I used to sketch Joey like this all the time. It was a ...typical scene on the farm. The day after Christmas in 1984, I was painting this final piece and my brother John walked in and told me Joey had passed away. I went to the funeral. I didn’t go back to the painting until the holiday season was over. I just picked it up and took it to the attic where it remains to this day. A few years ago, I released this study for The Final Piece, but the original stays where it is, incomplete. I have quite a memory of this painting. It is mystical and I can feel Christmas and the peace and solitude it brings. Every now and again I work with the original and see the straw as it lays over the barn, the touch of evergreen in the background, all the bits of wood under the snow. The day he died, this is how his world looked. I knew that world so well.” PM ~