I have been thinking a lot of the idea of “Sanctuary” with the coronavirus keeping so many of us at home. For me, my home is a sanctuary away from the madness. Sanctuary changed a great deal over the course of painting it, with flowers and other images since painted over. The ultimate place to find sanctuary is in one’s own mind—the room of one’s mind. A calm quiet space.

I could not let the anxiety go though in my own mind or in the painting—thus the Cheshire Cat, the shadow in the foreground and the visual representation of choices in the windows and doors.

The cat was inspired by Lewis Carrol’s Cheshire Cat. This is one of my favorite excerpts from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. To me, the Cheshire Cat is the perfect metaphor for our times. Everything seems to have gone a little mad.

On the back wall of the painting the Preamble for the United States Constitution is printed over and over.