Dragonfly Love - Judi Cain

Acrylic on canvas
14" x 11" x 3/4" 
 
In March last year, at the beginning of the pandemic, my daughter came to Gainesville to drive me and my cat Stitch to be with them at their home in Virginia. She and her husband were worried that the highways might be closed and if anything happened to me she wouldn't be able to help me.
I thought it would be a nice little vacation - quality time with family. Since I paint every day, the first thing I packed was art supplies! I only took a few small canvases and one large one that needed to be finished, my favorite brushes and several tubes of paint - enough to last for a couple of weeks.
Stitch and I got settled into their spare bedroom. They did all the shopping and errands and instructed me on pandemic safety. I was able to take masked Nature walks in the nearby Arboretum where I took a lot of photos. I painted all my canvasses and ordered more. I painted landscapes and still lifes and portraits of my daughter's cats and Creative Energy paintings. One painting depicted human figures in bubbles and titled itself "Isolation." All the paintings were filled with the energy of Nature and thoughts of the pandemic and news of the political world.
It was a wonderful visit, but after 75 days I needed to be home. I packed up and drove 16 hours with my "check engine" light on. (The mechanic assured me it would be ok, as long as it wasn't flashing.) I deprived myself of water and ate very little so I wouldn't have to stop except for gas. I was well supplied with face masks and hand sanitizer. I arrived home to find that wasps had built a nest on my front door and it took 2 days to find a way to relocate them without harming them, while I brought my paintings inside through the seldom used back door.
The painting that was titled "Isolation" was sold within a week of my return home.
"Circumvention" and "Dragonfly Love" are my entries for this exhibit and were both painted while I was in Isolation in Virginia.