A woman ordered the sunrise to give to her husband for their 50th wedding anniversary. They were on an exotic vacation with their children and families for their anniversary. So, when I started painting it on the morning of the 28th, I was so touched to see a number of jet streams passing through the air. I don’t see a lot of jet streams in the morning, especially in the winter. It seemed very symbolic. So when I delivered the sunrise, I made sure to point this out and was delightfully surprised to learn that she was also a pilot. Funny how life works out in the small details!

Around 6 or 7 months ago, a woman lost her young married son to a sudden and tragic death. He was one of those young men destined to make the world a better place with so much promise in his future and a newly pregnant wife. After his death, friends ordered the sunrise on the morning he died. Now, I receive a phone call from the mother and grandmother to be wanting the sunrise for February 17, the day her grand daughter will be born, the blood of her lost son. She cried when she talked to me. I cried when I painted it. I don’t often pray for beautiful sunrises, but the night before, I prayed that this family would be blessed with the signs of a glorious sunrise, as if the child’s father was overseeing this miraculous event. As I tried to paint that morning, I have never felt so inadequate as a painter, very humbled by the beauty I am not capable of truly capturing. What an honor to be an artist!
A baby girl was born that day, the only name the father and his wife had agreed upon was the name of a little girl.

Currently, I am working on my still life paintings using Beatles Song titles and manipulating the painting using colors from the many sunrises I’ve been painting. All those colors I have looked at for so many years are starting to weave through my other pieces. I love this sort of evolution as an artist.