"Oyster, Shell and Lemon"

Oil on archival, museum quality, 1/8” Ampersand Gessobord™ panel – 6” x 6”

These beauties were shucked at the Acme Oyster House in New Orleans. The lovely marble bar works well with the alabaster shell and soft flesh of the oyster. I took a few liberties refecting the hints of blue in the bar.

Back in February, twenty-six–year-old violin virtuoso David Garrett fell down a flight of stairs and landed on his violin case, which held a priceless Stradivarius. The violinist wasn’t badly hurt, but his instrument was not so lucky; upon opening the case, he found the violin in pieces. I had a similar experience recently. Well, perhaps not quite as devastating as crushing a priceless Stradivarius but just as debilitating to this artist; my palette knife finally gave up the ghost and broke from metal fatigue after 40 years of faithful service. Much has changed since I bought that first knife. As my painting brethren can tell you, mixing paint is crucial to a successful work of art. The feel and spring of a good palette knife becomes second nature. My dear old knife was Japanese. Its fine blade had the perfect shape, thinness and spring for the job. Although I did manage to find a close approximation of the shape, the new blade is Italian and is thicker than its predecessor. The spring is all wrong. I may have to try and find an old one on eBay.

In the words of Joni Mitchell -

“Don’t it always seem to go

That you don’t know what you’ve got

Till it's gone”