Sally kissing Susie

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email with information about a show in DC at the Foundry Gallery called Celebrate Gay Marriage.  As has been the case at other times, I felt a very strong call to enter the show.  But that would necessitate having a piece to submit! 

No problem - I sent an email to a friend of mine who is the go-to person at the Gay Community Center of Richmond and she let folks know I was looking for models.  Within an hour, a woman had written me to offer herself and her wife as models. 

We got together about a week later for a modeling session.  They were wonderful!  They're young and clearly really good together.  They went to Canada and got married about 18 months ago after a several year courtship.  It was lovely seeing them together and getting to know them.  Really nice people.  That's one of the wonderful things about doing this work - I get to meet such cool people who sometimes become dear friends.  I'm definitely in the right line of work!

I took a couple of hundred pictures as they and we tried to figure out good poses and they tried to get comfortable in front of the camera.  It's difficult to pose naked in front of someone you don't know sometimes!  I got some very cool shots.  I'm looking forward to painting several of them, but so far I've only had time to paint one.

I haven't had time to paint or blog much lately - my mom had a knee replacement surgery the 16th so I've been spending a lot of time with her when I'm not working.  It's been very, very busy.  Yesterday though, I had a day when I could be in the studio all day.  Such a luxury!!  I immediately looked at the images of the couple, chose one, cropped it and placed the grid on it, then contacted them to make sure they were OK with it.  Susie is awesome at following through on things and got in touch with me almost right away.  The minute I got off the phone with her, I began preparing the canvas and painting.  It felt so good to be applying paint to canvas again.  I miss it when I don't have time to paint.  And it brings me so much joy when I do.

I sent the entry to the Foundry Gallery today.  I'll post here when I find out whether the piece gets accepted or not.  If it does, the opening will be in DC in January.  Wish me luck!