This painting is an homage to the great Salvador Dali. This is my personal interpretation of one of my favorite paintings of his: Woman with a Head of Roses (pictured below):
I know I didn’t do Dali justice. This was an early painting to be sure. But it is highly significant to me.
This painting began in 2009. It represents the three major loves of my life. In the foreground is the headless skeleton, standing off-balance, looking like it will be blow away at any moment. Or maybe it doesn’t really exist…its just a dream and its about to disappear, never to be seen again. The headless skeleton represents my first true love. Sadly he committed suicide on the first Sunday of the year 2009. Read a bit more about that here: Renee’s Personal Story.
The distant figure in the background represents my second true love. Alas, we did not last. He stands in the distance, alive, ready to begin his new journey away from the woman he loved. All she has left of him is a good-bye poem that he wrote:
“I love her. She is but a cold, cold wind.
Curl Away, Back to Sleep
To dream of hands with fingertips
And the history of affection so deep,
They could not
Touch bottom.
From Butte With Love.”
The third and final love of my life is represented by the sun and the tornado. New days dawn after turbulent changes. Good things come from challenges. Love comes back to us if we let it. If we forgive others and forgive ourselves.
I added the tornado in 2011 after my love and I had traveled to Tuscaloosa, AL to visit family. While we were there the massive tornado roared through, devastating that town. We were less than 4 miles away. Hundreds of tornadoes roared through Alabama that day. It was unprecedented, awe-inspiring and very, very humbling.
There’s more to this story…which I will finish telling one day.
