Clouded Vision . . . Again!

Rarely does an artist get the opportunity to revisit a work, but I was given that opportunity when a man from Florida commissioned a companion piece to Clouded Vision.  The original painting as sold by Howard Schepp Fine Art to a couple who live in Vancouver, British Columbia.   The Florida man saw the painting on the Schepp website and commissioned me to make him a smaller (20" X 24") version of the painting.   As a child, born and growing up in Cuba, I was told the story of Santa Caridad, Cuba’s patron saint of charity.  She is a mixed-race virgin figurine that was found in the waters off of Eastern Cuba, and she protects believers' issues involving love, fertility, childbirth, and material prosperity.  The story I was told explained how three fishermen were out at sea when a terrible storm threatens their survival, and just before they perished, the black fisherman witnesses a vision of the Santa Caridad and prays to her for help. She grants them safety back to the island and asks them to spread the word of her existence.   As a child I could not envision this miracle.  Instead, I always imagined a frightening storm on the ocean with a ray of blinding sunlight breaking thru the storm to provide guidance to land.  At age seven, we migrated to New Orleans, a life for me very familiar to my Cuban life.  New Orleans is filled with a colorful culture mixed with religious and social similarities.  The Afro-Cuban deities and the Santerismo with their voodoo, the slavery, and the French and Spanish influences in the culture and lifestyles all contributed to my approach to painting Clouded Vision.   I painted it with a sense of nostalgia in antique tones and patina surfaces with superstitious undertones.   In this painting I merged both of my worlds -- my Cuban past and my Southern upbringing -- and created a painting that is on one hand traditional and, and on the other, personal.  The story has always represented to me that when in times of trouble (or "clouded vision") you hope for the one wish that will bring you to solace.