Strangely Out Of Place ... For A Reason

Take one look at my newest painting and the first thing you might wonder is, "What's a red high heeled shoe doing on a beach?"

That's exactly what I want you to think and beyond that, it really doesn't go that much deeper. With most of my recent paintings, I've somehow been relating them to the ongoing pandemic.

I decided that I needed to break free from that and pursue something - anything - that had no ties whatsoever to the coronavirus. I wanted something that was COVID-free.

Whenever I'm looking for new ideas for my paintings I peruse all kinds of visuals, seeing if there is anything that sticks. For some reason, a shot of a fashion model in red high heels grabbed my attention.

I often wonder how women can even walk while wearing heels that have a 5-or-6-inch lift to them. That is a feat (pardon the pun) that I'm sure would send me tumbling forward. From there, I thought about some unlikely places to wear these shoes and a beach immediately came to mind.

So I decided to try and do a low level view of the shoe in the foreground with ocean waves and a fairly nebulous sky in the background. I intentionally tried to keep the sand, water and sky all somewhat blurry so that your attention goes directly to the shoe.

And why just one shoe?

That's part of the story appeal. If I had put both shoes in the painting, there wouldn't be as much speculation. One might assume that the wearer kicked them both off and was heading for the water.

But by painting just the single shoe perched atop the sand, it creates a few questions or possible story lines that the viewer is free to develop their own scenario on why they're looking at a red high heeled shoe on a beach.

And that's as deep as this painting gets.