In 2008 the Vancouver Opera commissioned me to do four paintings to promote their upcoming season. While watching and listening to recorded performances I was enjoying the ‘over the top’ stylization of some of the singing, sets, and intense dramatics of the performers. I noticed a few times that a story line could had twist that made emotions even more poignant.

At one point while I was doing the opera paintings, an older friend of mine said that he could not stop crying. He was overcome with grief over life, death, the passage of time, loss, aging, the end of romance, and mentioned the meaninglessness of existence, of possessions, and how we are all lame ducks. He cried for a couple of weeks, but he eventually did come out of his sorrowed state.

I truly sympathised with him, and I dislike the thought that we are all on similar journeys through time. But my mindset at that point wasn’t afflicted by grief. I was engaging with my sons and their boyish playfulness. While watching a bunch of kids cartoons with them, I was noticing the distortions and freedom of design in the backgrounds and the exaggerated dramatics of cartoon characters. Sponge Bob came came across as variant of Opera, but without the great singing and music! Crying non-stop seemed operatic, albeit slightly absurd. In the case of my friend, his feelings were very real to him.

It is usual that a number of experiences, feelings and observations bounce against each other in my thinking, and compel me to make an image that has meaning to me.

The disjointed pale pink tinged kabuki-coloured crier is standing in his flood of tears tossing jewels among skulls.

The sympathetic bystander has a band-aid patched life little preserver around his waist in a suggestion that all will be ok. He’s wiping a tear sympathetically smiling. An exaggerated lame duck looks to the sky. I wanted a poignant beauty to the subtleties and contrast of the clouds from left to right, allowing the sun to peak through.

And upstage center a prop-like lightning bolt dangles, and we all know what happens when one stands in water that is hit by lightning!