old picture/new picture

[painting from 1982 (old picture), photo taken this week (new picture)]

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Back in 1982, I was in high school. I enjoyed art quite a bit, painting murals, and participating in the school's art club. The murals were directed by my art teacher, who was Artist-in-Residence for the city of Chicago at that time. We did Trompe l-oeil on the sides of buildings, the tallest of which five stories. That's a lot of scaffolding!

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For my own pleasure, I liked painting surrealistic images with acrylics. One Saturday afternoon I painted this picture while talking to my next door neighbor, window-to-window.

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She was sitting at the bottom of a staircase in her house, and I was in my own room. Chicago gangways are so narrow, you can stand in between and almost touch both houses at the same time. I don't remember how long it took to complete it, but the whole time, the neighbor girl sat very still, at the bottom of the stairs next door.

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I can't say for sure, but judging by how still she sat for me, I wonder if she thought I was painting a portrait of her. She was a pretty girl, and that might have made a good picture. But no, this is just your regular o'l run-of-the-mill flower pitcher with eyeballs.

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f.y.i.

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