Still Life with Grapes took me outside my usual comfort zone. I wanted to work from an 1859 still life by Lilly Martin Spencer, now in the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and was particularly interested in the contrast between the flat dark background and the fruit and grapes that seem to pop forward from it. I began the painting this while in Florida and completed it back in Vermont, learning from Spencer’s composition along the way.
Painting Info: “Still Life with Grapes.” Acrylic on canvas. 36”x24”. 2026. $1000.
