Got my head in the clouds

Over the past few months, I've noticed a loose theme developing amongst the ATCs and some photographs I took at the Oakland Columbarium. The first image I worked on was this one created for Shanna D'Antonio for January's ATC:


A month or two later, I created this ATC titled "looking up" for Michael Lownie in San Francisco:


Following that, I paid a visit to the Oakland Columbarium and photographed a few sections of an angel, featured in a stained glass window:



I've decided to recreate the first two images and the following as oil paintings. I'm going to approach them as studies, in the interest of helping me to learn more about creating light in paintings. Also, I like the images and wouldn't mind seeing hanging in the house at certain times of the year.


I can't decide whether to do this one:


or this one:


for the image that will hang to the right of the hand holding the green feather. Looking at them both, I think I'm going to go with the closer crop because so much of my time right now is spent on my foot. The reason for that is on Easter Sunday, I fell down and broke my ankle in three places, all the sections that help to hold you upright as you walk and stand. My view from the garden after falling down was exactly the same as the clouds ATC. I laid there for quite awhile before coming to the conclusion that I wasn't going to be able to stand up and get on with the rest of the day's planned activities. Thirty or forty minutes after that, I was being whisked away in an ambulance and then three days after that, I had surgery. I am posting this now while sitting in a wheelchair in my office.

All of the images shown above were done within a few months time, all were completed prior to the accident (except the proposed paintings, of course) and all of them have something to do with flying/wings, hope, aspirations and a desire to rise above, at least on a symbolic level. Of course, on a purely physical level, I've gone in the opposite direction because the foot injury has severely limited my ability to get up and move around. I do remember that at the time I snapped the hovering foot pictures, I was feeling strangely amused that I would be taking a picture of a foot, especially given the fact that I don't particularly like looking at feet. Now it all seems oddly connected, particularly the foot part.

The good news is that the damage is not permanent and I'm almost finished paying the damn medical bills (a whole other set of trials and tribulations). I should be up and walking within a month or two but I may need the assistance of a cane for awhile. The pins they put into my ankle are permanent though. I guess I'm a prime candidate for setting off the metal detectors at the airport now. Fun times ahead!