Trigger.

The Departure

Sunday, I came across some beautiful and vaguely ominous paintings by Frank Webster when I went to the Marie Walsh Sharpe open studios. Specifically it was the painting with the plane in the sky that got me. It could have just been a plane in the sky or it could have been one of those planes in the sky on that morning. I was thinking that maybe it was a case of me projecting too much into a painting. I was thinking, "When will this even get out of my head?" Then, I saw the photo in the Times from this morning's unannounced flight meanderings over Lower Manhattan. Then I realized, "Oh, right. Never." Turns out the title of the painting is The Departure, which could move in either direction, meaning-wise. Life is weird. Painting is real.


The Departure (detail)


New York Times, photo, April 27, 2009.