Australian Christmas

In 1994 I was invited to be in a Christmas themed art show at our World Trade Center, at the foot of Canal Street - across from Harrah's. This small exhibit was on one side of the front lobby. The other side had the traditional large Christmas tree, train and traintrack that encircled the tree.

Since the show was at our World Trade Center, we were asked to select a country and look up information on how that country celebrated Christmas. For this show I chose Australia. First of all it is summer down there at Christmas. The beach is a popular place to be. There is "Caroling by Candlelight" on the beach. So, I focused on the candlelight tradition. Painting in an Aboriginal style, I used dots to capture the effect of lights - candles and stars. An aunt, who is often critical of my work, told me she was buying it. It now hangs in her kitchen.

Besides the sale, I had a lot of positive feedback from artists and non-artists when it hung in the show. In spite of all that, I did not pursue making more dot paintings. There were other methods I wanted to try first.

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 16"