San Gabriel – Acrylic on Masonite – 11 x 14 inches.
A few years ago I unexpectedly lost contact with a friend. She reappeared just as unexpectedly only a few days ago. In addition to playing the harp, camping with her dogs and riding motorcycles, she is also learning to fly airplanes. I painted this image of the world above the clouds years before she was born, but I post it today in gratitude for the renewal of a friendship.
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“San Gabriel”
Well, the title of the painting no doubt refers on the one hand to the San Gabriel Mountains, but I also enjoy a possible fanciful alternative: namely that this is a painting from the point of view of San Gabriel himself, the Angel Gabriel. In this way the “World Above the Clouds” includes not only mountain tops and the “heavens” as we metaphorically refer to the sky, to the layers of the atmosphere and beyond but also to the celestial sphere where an angel might dwell or visit in order to provide us terrestrial beings with an unusual point of view. I imagine Gabriel communicating with an artist who is named for one of the other archangels, Michael, saying, “Here’s a perspective that should startle a viewer into thinking about things a bit differently.” It certainly works on me.