Virginia's Window

I've been working/not working on this pastel for over almost a year. In fact, it doesn't look like this anymore since I was unhappy with the tree & sort of ERASED! it. This was supposed to be a birthday gift for my friend and voice teacher, founder/conductor of New York Treble Singers & Davidson Singers in NYC, Virginia Davidson...who has moved back to her home town in Florida (but will be back again in May for a 25th anniversary gala performance with NYTS & Davidson Singers). So, unfortunately, this work is far from done...and far from its intended home!

It is the view from a window in her upper west side apartment. One rainy day I was there for a lesson and she called me to the window to see "her tree"; where brick apartment buildings, yellow taxicabs and the metro melee stepped aside to reveal a beautiful, blossoming fruit tree that seemed to glow in the overcast. I snapped a picture with the thought of creating this "view" for her to take with her to Florida. It was a fine idea, which made it vulnerable to my predictable sabotages: procrastination, procrastination, procrastination with a little imposter syndrome thrown in.

May is the new deadline!