LOOKING DOWN TO SEE UP

This one began with a mud puddle in Michigan, after a spring rain finally broke. Bare trees reflected upside down in still water, the sun caught in the branches, the sky suddenly underfoot. I

tried at first to copy the photograph exactly, and the painting went flat. It came alive only when I stopped describing the puddle and let it be what it actually was: the same substance briefly doing more than itself, ground and light at once, up and down no longer sure which was which.

No puddle, no sky. You only look up because you were already standing in the mud, looking down.

|Looking Down To See Up | 40×40 | Mixed Media on Canvas