2. Here are a few facts about my artwork: Title: “Harlequin in the Time of the Pandemic,” size: 12” by 12” by 1 ½”, medium: mixed (art tissue, acrylic), created in 2020. This information may or may not verify or affect your first response. Did you notice more after learning my title? Is there anything about the painting and title that clicks with your perceptions? Now that you have some details, compare your thoughts and feelings to your first response (image only).

3. Here’s the story: With 99.9% of my artwork, I gather materials, choose music and get to work. With no plan in sight, I trust the process to lead me somewhere. You can see in #1 where this continuing experiment of layering art tissue over older paintings led. Here is the older work, “Yellow Sky” (2008). You might see parts of it peeking through. I stayed with the palette of yellows and greens. The sky is still yellow.

Surrounded by piles of art tissue and scissors ready, I slathered “Yellow Sky” with gel medium. I cut out a figure, a fellow who struck an active pose. He did not have a head, but that was just a detail. There was something about him that said “harlequin.” Next came a confetti pile of diamond-shaped pieces and a look into my artbooks for images and information. Then came the internet… It was a long, but necessary time to absorb and reject notions of “harlequin.” As playful characters, they offered games and distraction from the late 16th century onward. Inspired, I grabbed my colored pencils and decorated the pants of my still headless harlequin, who now had gloves and a matching ruff. Those shoes – I had so much fun with them, it felt illegal. With my pens, I teased out a village on the horizon. Next, I cut out a head with a wide brim hat and gave him a ball to throw into the air. The ball went into wet gel medium with no problem, but when I put down his behatted head, the bottom of his face fell off, along with most of the hat’s brim. Hmmm… an accident. Cutting out the bottom of another face felt both strange and familiar. It was, after all, November 2020, when mask-wearing had become (and still is) everyday attire. The painting became a response to the pandemic, even to the figure lying prone at the harlequin’s feet. The ball – is he catching or sending it airborne to someone? Time is stopped in a painting.