oil on canvas 60"x48"

Having come off of a teaching job and in search of how to begin again in a new studio in a new city I decided to take my own painting course and began with an old student assignment: a winter still life. At the same time, I decided to re-read "Paula Modersohn-Becker: The Letters and Journals" to see if after several years it still resonated with me (it did). As my still life began to appear, it seemed to need something at the top of the canvas and I could sense the presence of a reclining figure. Still reading, I went on to Rainer Maria Rilke's "Requiem For A Friend" and realized that there in my evolving painting were Paula's apples and oranges and the reclining figure seemed to echo Rilke's woman who was "deep inside the mirror"...a lingering presence...and then I understood: there was Rilke's requiem for Paula. This painting took two years to make and during that time I found myself in a completely unplanned religious reversion, learning how to let old acquired habits and way of life go and was beginning again with a new spiritual focus. Looking once more at the painting and seeing the old figure/doll/manikin bound in cloth, lying face down on the table, and watching as the new figure/spirit rose, I realized: there was my life.