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24"x30" Oil on Stretched Linen
Showing and available at:
My Studio, joshua@netalliance.com, 651-497-7480
Description:
Most paintings are of something that catches my interest, as I work they all become imbued with memories and associations the subject conjures, and in that the piece becomes about more than what it depicts, and most of the time I keep those things to myself, they are for me, as they sustain me through the difficult passages that every piece presents.
"Praying for Taylor" is about more than my response to a place. It is as I have named it. It is a prayer, a protracted and sustained meditation on the life of a small girl, her twin and their family.
After a hearing bad news about the daughter of an old friend, I felt powerless. I couldn’t really do anything for him or his family. My mind and heart were lost while I put myself in their shoes, and old pains of my own came to the fore. After struggling to get through basic errands, I walked to church, lit some candles for him and his family, knelt and prayed. Prayed for courage, wisdom, peace, faith, and healing. As I did, my mind kept going to a picture I had scene earlier in the day of Lake Superior at twilight. I took it a few years ago and had come across it in the morning, before he and I had spoken, while looking for something else. As I walked home from church, the image stayed with me, it was becoming a metaphor for what I wanted for him and his family. The day has ended, clouds are loosing their grip revealing the not so distant beauty of heaven watching from the horizon, the big lake so easily stirred into a torrent of crashing waves, has given way to gently lapping at the shore. Or as one of my daughter's books say, “the day is done. the sea is deep, and they rock and rock and rock to sleep”
When I got to the studio, I couldn’t focus on anything but his family and that image, and I needed to get something done, so I dug up the snap shot on the lap top, pulled out a 24”x30” canvas, and after about eight hours of holding his family up in prayer and meditating on the peace of that night standing on the shore of the Lake Superior, and how over due it was in their life, I had the painting.

"First Place Oil Painting Award" - The 2nd Annual Juried Art Competition Award, 2008, Hosted by the Savage Arts Council, Savage MN

Painter

http://www.joshuacunningham.com 

Rain in the Beans
The St. Paul Yard
Up Late in Lowertown - SOLD
Red Bartlett's in Blue - SOLD
A Fine Pairing - SOLD
St. Paul Serenade - SOLD
My January Escape - SOLD
Tulips are Better Than None - SOLD
Waiting for Charlie Parr - SOLD
Golden Hour in the Vineyard - SOLD
Cathedral in Autumn - SOLD
Making a Park - SOLD
Lowertown Hobo - SOLD
Blufftop Apples - SOLD
Fog on the River - SOLD
Going Driftless - SOLD
Sultry Sunrise - SOLD
Hilbert Knipple's Last Resort - SOLD
Pepin and the Sky - SOLD
Stream, Snow, Bridge - SOLD
Unraveling Winter - SOLD
Willow in a Trout Stream - SOLD
Into the Quiet - SOLD
A Dappled Afternoon - SOLD
Light and the Lilac - SOLD
Pine Creek in Autumn - SOLD
Hawk's Perch - SOLD
Pushing Empties - SOLD
Jack Tripper - SOLD
Dawn at the Tug Shack - SOLD
Low - SOLD
Silver and Gold - SOLD
Into Evening - SOLD
First Light, on the Last Day in Firenze - Collection of the Artist's Wife
Autumn and the Frost - SOLD
Frosty Autumn - SOLD
December in Swede Hollow - SOLD
Doug and Janie's Place - SOLD
November Along Childs Road - SOLD
Along the Line - SOLD
Heart of Door County - SOLD
Glare, Air, and Trestle - SOLD
Winding Through Autumn - SOLD
Spring Pastrue - SOLD
Moon Rise over Ellsworth - SOLD
Edge of a Meadow - SOLD
Spring Near Northfield - SOLD
Lilydale in a Frost - SOLD
Golden Hour in A Tulip Feild
Trestle and Frost - SOLD
Steel and Air - SOLD
Steel and Air, Field Sketch - SOLD
Good Morning Maiden Rock - SOLD
Bringing in the Fall - SOLD
Below A Rising Sky - SOLD
Three of a Kind - SOLD
A Walk Across the Rooftops, Commission
Bare Branches and Blue Shadows - SOLD
Low Rollers - SOLD
After the Party - SOLD
Bridges of St. Paul - SOLD
A Serious Sky - SOLD
Looking for Mermaids at Cave Point - SOLD
Creek Song
Makin' Hay While the Sun Shines - SOLD
Coverin' My Tracks - SOLD
Not So Skinny Dippers - SOLD
Below the Mendota - SOLD
Leaning into Spring - SOLD
Praying for Taylor