At the end of 10th grade I developed a crush on a young man from school who worked at a nearby market. My mother started it with her talk of the cute boy behind the counter. Tom and I started talking and one thing led to another. One night I awoke to the tapping of stones being tossed up at my window. It was 2:00 a.m. one muggy hot summer night and I snuck out of the house to talk to Tom. He made me feel so special with gifts, kind words and chivalrous gestures. We spent the whole summer hanging out - we even hooked our best friends up with each other. I was a naive young girl though. A week before school was due to start Tom told me that his girlfriend had come back from Europe and that he wouldn't be coming over anymore. I had no idea that he even had a girlfriend - I thought it was me. My heart broke and the whole lovely experience was shattered and left to memory.

This piece represents that dreaded end - a time when hearts seemed more fragile, when boyfriends and girlfriends united and parted in the blink of an eye. .

I used a pink rose to signify the beginning of a romance--but this was only a romance to me so the rose was tossed away.

This was done using artist-quality Golden and Windsor-Newton acrylic paints on 3/4" gallery-wrapped canvas. I have embellished it with pastel, charcoal, photo images of butterflies, and bits of paper from the trash. I sanded over some of the darker areas to give this piece a weathered look. I found a small paper heart on the ground outside and thought it appropriate for this piece. I ripped it in two and adhered it to the lower left corner.