A beautiful January morning in Maui, sun shining and birds singing, ahhh----and an emergency alert awakens your cell phone and those around you in a cacophony of squawks!
You read.
You look up & around you in disbelief.
Breath held.
You breathe again- you are frightened-what do you do?
I was setting up my show under the Banyan Tree in Lahaina. Take shelter? Where???? Pause, look and see! We scampered down to the under-renovation-Old Jail Gallery in the basement of the Old Lahaina Courthouse. It's currently closed but was rapidly unlocked- and we sat in the cells! I am practical- I did take my bag lunch along....but the art? Well, it was sitting in its cases under the Banyan tree all alone.
But if you are one of my amazing loyal customers, you talk to me later that day at the art fair when the scare is over, but the shakes are not, about a one-of-a-kind painting to remind them of the day and what they were feeling so deeply. I got to work on their amazing quick snapshot of a kiawe tree that was photo "bombing" their view of a fantastic sunset.
When the oil painting was completed I asked them to name it before it shipped out. "Thankful For Another Maui Sunset" came into being, 16 x 20 oil on canvas. Why that title? My collectors said what it means to them: "after that scare, we all need to look at things more, like beautiful sunsets. Take nothing for granted, nothing is guaranteed."
Mahalo for another day.
"Thankful For Another Maui Sunset" 16 x 20 oil on canvas now resides with its owners in Wisconsin.