On display at Corrick’s in Santa Rosa February – March

On display at Corrick’s — 630 4th Street Santa Rosa, Calfornia

February 6 – March 6

A few years ago, a friend snapped a blurry photo of a woman who happened to be looking at him while his taxi zoomed past a busy marketplace in Morocco. I loved this lady’s beautiful gesture, captured during a split second connection between two total strangers —  a tourist randomly passing by someone going about her day shopping halfway across the world.

My friend let me borrow his photo it to paint it using a black canvas. I left her long black veil plain and painted the rest of her over that, using my own left glove as a reference.

Her beatific pose suggests a blessing — and indeed, I feel blessed as I remember the beautiful truth that whatever our personal realities — all so incredibly random — we are still connected in time and space on this planet, wherever and whoever we are. Now the stranger waves to me from my bedroom wall where I imagine her life so very different than mine.

From my bed, I hope she survived the big Moroccan earthquake, because despite the complete unknowability, I care about her. I wondered if she’d been shopping for her kids or grandkids. Then I think of my two estranged grandsons and feel a little jealous.

Barbara Bose