Summers at Lake Ann
This painting is a barter with Paul Giroux—a luthier, craftsman, and friend who builds semi-hollow guitars with obsessive attention to detail. A few years ago, I bought one of his instruments; we talked about trading for the next one, and this commission is how we made it happen.
Paul wanted me to paint his memory of childhood summers at a cabin on Lake Ann—a place that no longer exists, with no single photo to reference. We talked through the specifics: the 50's mint green chair, the rickety pier, the boat, the figures. I worked from multiple photos spanning decades, none from his vantage point. When I hit a wall, I used AI to generate a reference image (imperfect, but useful), then abandoned it entirely and trusted my imagination to make the scene believable.
What moved me most was Paul's trust—not just to capture his memory, but to take it further. I invested everything into making it real. The result is hanging in his home, and I'm playing his birdseye maple short-scale guitar in @theraccoondogs. Two artists, two mediums, one exchange.