(india ink, oil pencil, watercolor)

This is one of my favorite pictures from the recent show “Traveler’s Rest”.

One of the things I love about really old women (I grew up around a LOT of them and, these days, am still involved with at least 4 on a very daily/regular basis) is that way they have of just flashing….for one arresting moment….a surprising, unguarded, sheer, young girlish-ness. It’s an odd (I know…an adjective I use a lot), sensation… to be looking at woman in her eighties…and she pushes her hair back, or just grins, or simply makes some gesture that makes you (me, at least) think “Oh…that’s how she was when she was 14….”