Remember When?: Accidental Reminiscing

     When  I painted this piece, Morning Commute, I had no idea what was going to happen just a few short months later.   At the time, it made me think of my time living in Montreal, waiting for the Metro.  Now I look at it through slightly different eyes.  It seems more evocative of a bygone era now, something we'll never quite get back, like the innocent optimism of the 1950's (or so I've heard) or "that time" when we had to look stuff up in books (which I actually remember).  I have visions of the collector who eventually has this paining, sitting, years from now, and a child asking, "what's that picture of?".  The child will likely be the child or grandchild of the collector, someone who knows nothing af any time before they became cognizant of the world around them.  

     I can then picture the collector,  pausing momentarily, then having successfully pulled the memory from their mind, telling the youngster about a time when we used to go places that were crowded, restaurants, bars, sometimes even stores were crowded.  And we, if we lived in larger cities,  we often rode buses or trains that were so crowded that there was barely standing room as you were packed on like sardines, breathing the same air.  And we did all that and never thought a thing about it.....until we had no choice but to think about it.   And then the child will laugh and say, "you tell funny stories." :)

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