Brief, fragile

Sitting here, the afternoon setting in that summer way.



He gets up in the morning, has his coffee, sits in the garden, contemplating. So many things solved in the garden. And then he's in his studio, and I can hear him downstairs moving around, brushes clinking against the glass, Mozart or Arvo Part sounding their talent in the background.

He's working on a series of new paintings. Permanent artwork. As opposed to the ephemeral paintings which melt. We're setting up new gigs, in new locations. And I have this little paragraph:

Artistically, Halloran’s work explores the ephemeral nature of existence -the difference of one degree and the illusion of physical security and permanence. The vivid colors in his work are a study on the brief and fragile brilliance of existence.



For these paintings, he begins with images of the crystal structure - close ups, melting shots, lacework in ice. He working with paint, encaustic and glazes. They're glorious, visceral, shiny.



So his studio looks like an artist's studio again, not just computer central, where he figures out weight loads and budgets. This summer it's messy, paintings strewn everywhere, things torn up, sun pouring in. Debussy or Felix Mendelssohn offering their uplifting accompaniment.




He was out. I put a few of them on the porch. Photographs don't do justice, but there was a glory to the day. A bear and a deer in the yard at the same time. This after the whale.

He had been to the heart of the Creek to pick up our half pound bags of coffee at The Gumboot Cafe.

But he ended up at the pier to see the magnificence of Georgia Strait and Vancouver Island in the early light. Seventeen years waiting for this and right there on the end of the pier, the blow hole, the tail flipping over in the water, the plume of water and air.

There was a glory to the day.