Last week, I started painting again for the first time in two months.  First, as I always do when I have had a "layoff,"  I started drawing to get back to the basics and into the practice of looking at lights and darks and simplifying my images.
While I was in my upstairs studio, I went in one of the rooms and found a quilt on one of the beds.  It just so happens, I was painting from a photograph I had taken a few years ago on the outskirts of Boone on my way back from Damascus, VA.  There were clothes hanging on a clothes line and on a wooden fence out in front of the house...that's right, in front!  On the line was a quilt that caught my attention and became the center of the piece.
When I found out that the quilt on the extra bed upstairs was passed on to me from sister and it once belonged to my Grandmother (not sure if she sewed the quilt or not), I switched it for the one in the photo---Mamaw's Quilt!  

I hope you enjoy it...

Ok! Ok!  I owe you an explanation...I get it...so here goes (the short version because it has taken me 7 months to get to this point.
Last December, I had a pacemaker installed because my cardiologist (?) said so.  After 4 months of feeling tired, no energy, shortness of breath, etc., I called a friend from the Mountain, Dr. JD Lawson, a vascular surgeon/cardiologist (Dukie and Vandy grad) and told him I was heading to the Mountain mid-April and asked if he could help me find another cardiologist.  Long story a little longer, with him as my agent, he introduced me to three fantastic cardiologists: a PE, thoracic surgeon, and a heart failure specialist (all three Duties)--all agreed--two leaking valves had caused my heart to work overtime and open-heart surgery was required.  These guys are all great and I am flying now, feeling better than I have in 7 months (Pause to insert painting here)
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So...now I am back to finishing the pieces that I had started in April...and it feels good...no, great!  This is an old house in a winding backroad in Valle Crucis, NC.  The title is "Wash Day."  
I am so glad my Greensboro cardio team has "cleaned up" the mess from the (?)  I wrote about in the first paragraph!  And now, I look at Dukies in a whole new light...yes, they can play basketball...but they are smarties too!