Full Moon at Daytime Towd Point 24 x 36 oil/canvas
Imagine my surprise when I walked into my son’s guest room in Las Vegas last week and saw an early painting of mine over the bed. There was Towd Point, calm blue water between narrow sandy spits, so far from where I’d painted it. I gave it to him years ago. I don’t remember the exact occasion, but I know it’s followed him up and down the California coast, then to Austin, Dallas, and now Las Vegas.
He seems to have moved almost every year for the past decade, and through all that change, this familiar stretch of water found its place on his wall. Looking again, my eye wandered through the green grasses, across the pale sand, out through the opening between the spits, and toward the distant horizon. Above it all, hidden in the clouds, a pale daytime moon. As a child, I was amazed that the moon could appear in the afternoon. I thought of it as belonging to night. The explanation is simple enough. It reflects sunlight and sometimes is bright enough to show up against the blue, but knowing that hasn’t entirely taken away the wonder.
The mountains around his home are majestic. I enjoyed being there with him, taking in a place so different from my own, but seeing that painted water brought a particular comfort. The low shoreline, the open sky, those greens and blues, they are familiar to me in a way the desert is not. It pleased me to think he’d carried a little of the East Coast with him through all those moves, and now, on this visit, I was the one far from home. I hadn’t expected to find Towd Point in Las Vegas, but there it was, above the bed where I slept.
Seeing it there reminded me that a painting can carry a sense of home from one place to another. Do you have something you’ve taken with you from home to home, something that makes you feel connected to a place you love? I’d enjoy hearing about it.
Bring the coast home, see available prints here: https://www.artfullywalls.com/artists/casey-chalem-anderson-83481
Until next time,
Casey
