River Crossing
2009, Oil on Herringbone Linen
32 x 42 inches, framed
While Scott was modeling for this painting he would actually sit for hours in that boat for me at sunrise. I stood with my canvas at the shore of the lake and he dropped two anchors so I could paint him and get the light on the boat just right. He even helped me to get my dog Dylan to sit still.
While we worked I asked him what his relationship was like with God and with Death. He had a potentially terminal diagnosis at the time: a blood vessel in his brain that could burst at any time. I didn’t have any answers for him, I was just curious. As a person who was mentally that close to the end of his life, what did he think about? No one had ever asked him that and in the following years he returned to the spiritual practice of his childhood.
It was only a year later that his son would die from an overdose. His spirituality was the anchor that sustained him and his family through that difficult time.