Tulips and Cranberries (almost done)

Tulips remind me of springtime.  And springtime reminds me of Easter.  Easter reminds me of food.

And food reminds me that I saw my first freegan this week.

I’d heard of freegans, but had never actually seen one. What’s a freegan?  It’s a person who is not homeless, yet chooses to “dumpster dive” or go through garbage for food.   The guy I saw was bending over and going through big black garbage bags.  He pulled out a bunch of bananas and put them in one of the three recyclable bags he was carrying.  You know those bags that every store now sells so you can use them instead of getting plastic bags.  But then every time you go to the store you forget to bring the cloth bag and end up buying another one until you have more cloth bags than you know what to do with?   Yeah, those bags.   He had 3 of them.  Probably all from Whole Foods.  (a/k/a Whole Paycheck.)

Anyway, this guy seemed like he was getting quite a bit of food out of the garbage bags.  At least that’s what I thought until he moved to the dumpster in front of Key Food (a local grocery store). There was a veritable BONANZA of food.   There were some tossed cartons of  tomatoes that I actually had my eye on. Ok, not really, but those tomatoes did look pretty good in the dark.   I thought it odd that while the freegan was piling his bags with food,  the real homeless guy who sits in front of Key Food and asks for change had his back to the dumpster and had no idea what was going on behind him.   The whole scene was a bit surreal.

I almost finished Tulips and Cranberries but wanted to post it now since next weekend is Easter and this week will be busy at work.  I’ve been TRYING to not overwork paintings and to leave more white of the paper for highlights.  I read somewhere that it’s better not to finish a painting then to finish it and take the chance of overworking it.  So here it is, not quite finished.  I will go back and indicate the bottoms of the tulips and the edge of the vase but other than that, it’s done.

Happy Passover to all my friends who celebrate, Happy Easter to the rest of my friends and family.  Happy Spring to everyone.