SECRET STAIRWAY

60" x 48"
Acrylic on Canvas

When I was 10 years old my family lived in a 200 year old home on four acres of land. There was a bocce court my father iced over in winter for skating, a lush pear tree, and blackberry bushes everywhere.

I started this painting by mapping out the land and the house on the canvas to reconnect myself with that feeling of being there, then painted over it, purposely blurring it out like a memory, leaving only the staircase. Those stairs were always the focus — I loved them and wanted the whole painting to be about them. They were so narrow and steep that climbing them felt like being transported far back in time. I drew them the way a child would, because I was a child when I knew them.

Built up with brushes and a silicone catalyst wedge, the painting holds that same magical quality the house always had for me.