Wabi-Sabi   6x6   acrylic on Ampersand Gessoboard

The term Wabi-Sabi comes from two Japanese words and refers to that which is imperfect, aged, humble and authentic. Both nature and human made objects may have wabi-sari qualities. Wabi-Sabi is an esthetic that values the passing of time and the elements, the handmade and the simple. Wabi-Sabi is a way of being open to emotion and acceptance. Wabi-Sabi is a state of mind and a state of feeling.   -- Serena Barton

NEW YORK (AP) -- A painting of Christ by the Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci sold for a record $450,312,500 (over 380 million euros) at auction yesterday, obliterating previous records for artworks sold at auction or privately.

The painting, called "Salvator Mundi," Italian for "Savior of the World," is one of fewer than 20 paintings by Leonardo known to exist and the only one in private hands. It was sold by Christie's auction house, which didn't immediately identify the buyer.

The highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction had been $179.4 million (152 million euros), for Picasso's "Women of Algiers (Version O)" in May 2015, also at Christie's in New York. The highest known sale price for any artwork had been $300 million (253 million euros), for Willem de Kooning's "Interchange," sold privately in September 2015 by the David Geffen Foundation to hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin.

The 26-inch-tall (66-centimeter-tall) Leonardo painting dates from around 1500 and shows Christ dressed in Renaissance-style robes, his right hand raised in blessing as his left hand holds a crystal sphere.

Its path from Leonardo's workshop to the auction block at Christie's was not smooth. Once owned by King Charles I of England, it disappeared from view until 1900, when it resurfaced and was acquired by a British collector. At that time it was attributed to a Leonardo disciple, rather than to the master himself.

The painting was sold again in 1958 and then acquired in 2005, badly damaged and partly painted-over, by a consortium of art dealers who paid less than $10,000 (8,445 euros). The art dealers restored the painting and documented its authenticity as a work by Leonardo.

The painting was sold Wednesday by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, who bought it in 2013 for $127.5 million (108 million euros) in a private sale.

This is an excerpt from an article by Karen Matthews and Tom McElroy of the Associated Press.

There is currently a great little BBC documentary with Fiona Bruce about this painting on Netflix.

The Urge for Going  5x7  Acrylic on canvas board

This is a whisper of a painting. Inspired the increasingly active geese flying over my place from a nearby lake, and also by Carla Sciaky, a Denver folk singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist's cover of Joni Mitchell's song of the same name. I first heard her in the '80s and saw her play solo and with The Motherfolkers, the most carefully pronounced name in show business! I love her beautiful soprano and her baroque/early music influences.
To hear her cover of Urge for Going: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJbSoPUw-jw
To learn more about Carla and her upcoming performances: ​carlasciaky.com

Here are a couple of 'new' textured abstracts, both of which I started last year when I was living in Golden. The first one below, Alignments (8x7), I finished working on last week. It is similar to the Veil Series I've been working on for the past couple of years, though they are textural, similar to my first abstracts like Sunspots (Red X) on my homepage and the Abstracts page. Distant Memory of Color, bottom, is just that. A haunting memory of a color I've used or seen elsewhere but can't quite place. It certainly looks old to me, like an oxidized relic unearthed by archaeologists. I had to sit with it for a while to see if it was finished. It is. I love the physicality of these two paintings. I especially like the way the light catches the edges in Memory, which is one of those paintings that remains a mystery to me. Paintings like this don't come from you, just through you.

Alignments (8x7)    8x16"   Acrylic on canvas

Distant Memory of Color    8x16"    Acrylic on canvas