An oil painting of an approxinately 800 year old handmade native bowl next to a cholla cactus, a yellow wildflower and a desert willow beanpod. The items are arranged on a turquoise cloth against a Cadmium Red background. This painting took me about 20 hours to complete. I have been painting for two months, and I love it!
My mother was having a home built near Globe, AZ. She ordered a load of fill dirt for landscaping, and in that load of dirt were the pieces of this approximately 800 year old native bowl. She painstakingly glued the pieces, and asked me to paint it for her. She said it could be my first commission! I arranged the bowl on fabric my mother had in her sewing room, turquoise for the foundation and a deep beautiful red for the background. I went for a walk beneath the Superstition Mountains were I live, and picked out a cholla cactus, a desert willow beanpod, and a wildflower. I arranged them in my shadowbox, and took this reference photo for my mother's painting.
Dare I call it done?
First completed painting of 2026.
Desert Fragility
Oil on 9x12 inch canvas panel
More details in Alt Text.
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