During my trip to Madison, Wisconsin last November I took a walk around the university part of town and a yellow storefront struck me as picturesque enough to take a snapshot. Later I went home and painted this picture:
I just went back 8 months later. Now it’s summer, and as I walked past 320 W. Johnson Street, I almost missed it. The yellow storefront has been painted, the doors are replaced by steel doors, and a Mexian restaurant has moved in. It looks completely different and it would never occur to me to take a picture of it and paint it.
I walked to the other side of the street to get another shot from the same vantage point as the photograph that turned into the painting:
What a difference 8 months makes.
I think that there is some message here about change, or at least about steel doors. Whatever did they do with the door with two circular windows? Fame is fleeting–maybe that is the lesson.