Paint that one again...

I remember a quote from Joni Mitchell, "A painter does a painting, and he paints it, and that's it, you know. He has the joy of creating it, it hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, and maybe somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he never, you know, nobody ever, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint a Starry Night again, man!' You know? He painted it and that was it."  She was saying how paintings are different than songs in this way, because songs are sung again, and again, and again.

Well the above photos are an example of a painting being painted again, and again, and again.  People did ask me to paint this over and over after the first one sold and I showed a photo of it in various places.  These paintings are inspired by the William Butler Yeats' poem, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" :

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

This poem resonates with me so much, and I believe the sentiments of it are felt by so many people more and more strongly.  It is the universal longing for nature, a kind of primal or spiritual longing to return to the connection with the earth that is hardwired in our DNA somewhere.  Perhaps that's why this painting has been a kind of self-portrait for me, one I return to often, and that others are drawn to.

Full Circle Farm is my version of Innisfree, with all the connotations.