Maxfield Parrish:

He was the first artist I ever was aware of, as a youngun, because my aunt Regina had a book of his artwork in her room, and I used to look through it, in total wonder, when we would go to my grandmother’s house. It was something I loved to visit, that book.

There’s one of a naked girl, perched on a rock by the calm ocean, looking up at the stars. The whole painting is a soft calm creamy blue. Her nakedness is completely innocent. She looks like a nymph, she happily stares up at the stars, her skin the same creamy blue as the night around her. (I posted the image in the Extended Entry below). That painting was like a crack in the atmosphere to me, when I was little. I stared at it, and I could slip inside, like Alice through the Looking Glass. I was on that rock, with the blue night, the starry universe, the calm quiet blue ocean, the soft chilly air on my arms … It was a doorway into another world. That other world felt more real than the actual world I was in.

Here’s a post with some of Parrish’s work. The first two in particular really strike me.

I need to get a big book of all of Parrish’s stuff. I need to have his stuff nearby, so I can look at it from time to time.