This abstract painting was created for Heather Sims, a fellow artist, and inspired by her work entitled, "Ode to Polish Pottery VII." Heather, who lives in Germany, has a passion -- or maybe obsession :-) -- for Polish Pottery. Since I have known her she has provided me with a Polish Pottery education and even a little pitcher of my own. I knew when I signed up to do the EBSQ “Ripped Off” show with her that I had to do a “rip” of one of her trademark pottery paintings. I chose Ode VII because I really liked the colors and composition of her painting.

I chose to do an abstract because Heather has expressed interest in my abstracts before. As with many of my paintings, I first began with a sketch of the painting. I love artwork that shows movement and vibrancy so I created a repeating pattern that vaguely resembled the plate in Heather’s work to express a progression of form across the canvas. I wanted her to be able to recognize pieces of her own work in mine – the plate, the plants, and the creamer – with out resorting to a literal translation. In other words, the forms of her painting take on an entirely different meaning and composition in my painting. I returned to my familiar palette of saturated and highly contrasted colors to express energy and near reverberation in the image. I like paintings that scream. I hope Heather does, too, lol!