#43/365 Paintings

Can’t stay away from the Pierrot character. Especially if he is playing a banjo and looking longingly at the sky. I can only imagine that this sad dreamer is playing gypsy ballads. Which made me think about the relationship of Pierrot to the gypsies and to their culture. Though Pierrot and the gypsy have a long history of symbiosis in artistic expression (particularly in Italy and Spain) as impoverished spiritual outsiders, they have some distinct differences in attitude. Pierrot is often looking up, a billowy dream fills his face and his eyes are generally in a sideways grin, slightly flirtatious. The gypsies pride themselves in occupying a small part of the earth. Dancing in place, looking at their feet. Rugged individualism occupies their strife and fact of their human survival is on so little — bare feet, music, love. I love them both. The striving, searching, showing up to reach towards more…