"U" is for Universe - A to Z Challenge

Painting in progress detail ©Mary Montague Sikes

"U" is for the Universe. What a vast meaning that covers.

"All space-time, matter, and energy, including the solar system, all stars and galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space, regarded as a whole" is a dictionary definition of universe.


"A sphere of interest, activity, or understanding" is another segment of the definition. That's the definition that pertains to Farrah Ferand, heroine of my novel, Evening of the Dragonfly. For her, at the moment, the universe is her studio where she creates new paintings and parts of new paintings everyday. 

Farrah's painting for today is a detail from the larger painting (24" x 36") that she started yesterday. As she paints and sprays Robert Doak watercolors, her past and her extended universe become clearer. Also, her relationship with her family and with Dirk Lawrence, the mysterious stranger she has grown to love grow clearer as well. 

Tomorrow the entire new painting will be revealed. I don't know yet how the colors and imagery will change, but they will. It will be an artwork in tribute to and memory of the Vanished.

"P" is for Portal to Peace - A to Z Challenge

"Portal to Peace" ©Mary Montague Sikes

Portals have long fascinated me, and I often use them in my paintings. As a young child, Farrah Ferand, the main character in Evening of the Dragonfly, remembers overhearing a conversation between her mother and her grandfather. He told Martha Ferand about his belief that Earth was the war planet where souls come to fight. Her mother said that somewhere in the Universe there must be a "portal to peace". That thought stuck with the seven-year-old, and she transcribes the vision from her imagination into a painting for her one-person show. (Although this scene is not an actual one from the book, Farrah's back story makes her into the character she becomes in my novel.)

"Portal to Peace" is 20 x 16 inches, mixed water media on canvas. It's painting number twelve for the exhibition being created during the A to Z Challenge project.