I just recently finished this new piece of artwork and decided to call it THE GATHERING.

It seemed appropriate as it is an image of a gathering of ants on a particular plant, which I honestly don't know the name of. The plant was broken along the main steam and the ants seemed to be feasting on the exposed insides of the plant.

Visually I found this image striking with bold pink leaves against the soft green background. The plant was fuzzy and the dark smooth ants created a contrast against the bright colors. At first glance all the ants pretty much looked the same but as I painted the ants, I noticed they weren't. One ant was a bit smaller and shaped differently. I wondered if the ant was a different species of ant, or maybe the same kind of ant but younger. I don't know how these ants were related or not, yet they all decided to gather and part take on this plant.

I started to think about "gathering" and how and why animals gather. Some gather together for protection while they eat, other animals gather to hunt other animals. Other animals like birds gather to migrate long distances, while other animals gather to find a mate. No matter what animal or insect, a gathering was a purpose. Yet for humans, it can get more complex in it's purpose, it's meaning, and even on how we gather. Now we gather virtually on our computer screens, and or on social media.

As we approach the US holiday, called Thanksgiving, I started to think about this ritual of gathering to eat food, and how and why we do this. What is the purpose of this gathering? It reminded me of a podcast where I heard Priya Parker the author of The Art of Gathering talk about meaningful gatherings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppfONdsOkWI

If you are not familiar with her work, you can hear her TED talk on Youtube. Check the link below. Highly recommend to listen to as we head into the holiday season and gather...whether it be work colleagues or family or friends. It's not how we gather... but why.

I know it's been an incredibly hard year for me and I haven't been able to send these newsletters out as much as I was like. Yet even during very hard times I'm always thinking about art and wanting to share some of my inner thoughts. Hard times can give you pause and make you think a little deeper about life and your art, which makes you better artist.

So today I am showing one of my last pieces that I did this year. It's called, Hidden in Plain Sight. You can see that there is a frog sitting in a pond on some lily pads. One can image that the frog thinks he's quite well hidden amongst the lily pads because he's green and the plants are green but you can you and I can both clearly see he's sitting there, so that's why I called it Hidden in Plain Sight but there is a deeper meaning to that title.

People can also hide in plain sight, and for similar reasons like this frog and other animals that camouflage themselves in nature. People can camouflage themselves in society and on social media. Like the frog they can hide in plain sight who they truly are, or truly want to be, for the similar reasons. For example self-preservation, hiding from predators or one can camouflage themselves to be a predator. There's two different sides or reasons to camouflage or hide yourself in society or in nature and it boils down to this in my point of view, to eat or to be eaten. Here in this piece of art, the frog is hiding, probably from predators and I while I was painting I thought to myself I can also find myself "hiding" sometimes behind my art or just blending into a crowd of people, hiding in plain sight, but just like this frog you can clearly see me, but can you really see me is the question?

Have you ever hidden a part of yourself?

Have you ever tried to blend in or camouflage yourself?

And why?