I pick up a lot of cool old frames from garage sales and thrift stores. Last year I came across these beautifully rendered paintings that were being sold for the frames. The paintings were likely going to end up in the landfill. Which made me sad... they were someone's cherished children, carefully painted and framed. And they were also... a little quirky.
There was no signature or other identification anywhere to be found. The seller didn't know anything about them either; they told me they got them at an auction.
I purloined the frames for some of my own work, but these paintings gnawed at me... what to do with them?
I was thinking about how wrong it would be for them to be thrown away... which got me thinking about our throw-away culture... and children, our future generations... and climate crisis... and then I realized what I wanted to do.
Repaint, repurpose, recycle: I repainted the boy's background with a vision of the North Pole as a candy-cane buoy in a tropical ocean. Is this what family vacations will be like after the ice caps melt?
Australia was on fire in 2019 when I decided what to do with the haunting portrait of the girl.
If you've read this far, you should know that I'm happy to give these paintings away free of charge to whoever would like them. Doesn't feel right to take money for someone else's work. But I'd love to see them hung somewhere and prompting some discussion.
(Sorry, frames not included.) ;-)