Sunday, May 2, 2021

The fantasy date

 

Love on the High Line
Acrylic on canvas
36 x 48 inches
Barbara Muir © 2011
(a painting inspired by a New
York City vibe.)

We are in lockdown. How do you get through lockdown? One thing we do is have a fantasy date.
It’s the weekend so the standard question is what would you like to do today? Go out for lunch?
Go to a gallery, and see some art? Go to a movie tonight? Go out for dinner? 

All of that’s impossible. We’re in lockdown and not supposed to go anywhere or do anything.
Oh wait we're allowed to work (preferably from home). So what we do is talk about what
would be wonderful to do. This weekend our fantasy date was New York City. I love visiting
New York, and I love showing my art there. It’s a city I have visited enough times to know
where I’d want to go.

In our fantasy we look out of our very grey but elegant hotel room (grey rugs, grey chairs, white
duvet on the large bed) and see hundreds of yellow taxis jammed into the street below. This means
we’re in New York. The fantasy hotel room is in the Hilton Midtown. We can’t afford to go there anymore, even if it wasn’t Lockdown because the price now is about $1000 a night Canadian.
But because we can’t go anywhere we can be anywhere in our imaginations.  So in our fantasy
date we've already been to both the MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art) and the Met (The
Metropolitan Museum of Art.) So we leave our wonderful hotel room and walk up Avenue of the
Americas to a sweet Italian restaurant where I always order their salmon special.  

After an amazing dinner topped off with Crème Brûlée -- we walk first to Times Square, and
then back to Central Park where we sit on a park bench across from an evening wedding celebration
outside at a music hall at the top of the park.  And there we listen to the band and enjoy the sounds
of the city. (And yes we have experienced the entire date in real life, and can't wait to be there
again.)

Perfect date. 

2 comments:

Evelyn Oldroyd - painter said...

How beautiful this idea is❣️ As is the painting. We started to go through and edit photos from trios give by. It is similar and we talk and remember all the good times we had. And plan the next trip!

Barbara Muir said...

Thank you so much Evelyn,

I just read my husband a description of a meal we ate in Florence in 2009 and
this huge smile spread across his face.

I'm glad you like the painting. I do too. I loved walking on the high line.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO Barbara

Portrait Artist

My photo
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
I paint and draw on commission and for shows. To commission a portrait, or purchase one of my paintings please contact me at: barbara.muir@sympatico.ca
A major highlight in my career? Drawing Oprah Winfrey live via Skype for her show "Where in the Skype are you? Galleries: Studio Vogue Gallery, Toronto, Canada. The Amsterdam Whitney Gallery, New York City. Gallery at the Porch Door, Kingston, Canada. Your positive comments on this blog mean the world to me. I'd love to hear from you!