Mark: This is an example of patience and embracing the long journey of creation.  Rhythm is a ‘recycled’ painting. The original, which I painted over 10 years ago, had been in storage for years. When I opened my Winter Park gallery in 2016, I pulled it out of storage. I kept looking at it, feeling that I needed to do SOMETHING with it. It wasn’t speaking the right voice.

Over several months, the ideas kept germinating and one day, I jumped from idea to action.  I had only one thought: bring more light, more life – take away the darkness. In under 4 hours, she became a new person, brighter, but also more mysterious. I put the brush down, posted it on Instagram and, within days, Rhythm was sold to a wonderful interior designer who used it for a photo shoot and then placed it in the home of a client. 

To me, that’s the perfect journey for a painting – it comes from my heart, but speaks to others and eventually lives in a place where it is viewed and loved daily. 

Judy:  I first saw the ‘painting-that-was-to-become-Rhythm’ when we set up the gallery on Cherry St and had no love for the it – too muddy, too dark, too flat. It was so unlike a lot of Mark’s other work – it felt foreign. Mark’s reinvention turned it into one of my favorites, and I was thrilled that others loved it as well.  He is much more patient than I am – I would have tossed it years ago – but he knew the potential was there for something better, it just needed the right timing.