I had been commissioned to do a series of canvases for a long corridor in the medical lab where he worked. A place where panicked emergencies met the everyday efficiencies of an office.
Office boys pushed carts and drank coffee while men were helped in on the arms of their loved ones, holding bloody dishtowels to their heads. Old women, past remembering, stared wild-eyed from wheelchairs, coming for final tests.
I wanted something for the women, something with strength and surety, so I painted a line of portraits of the forest stones down in the dead leaves at the base of birches.
For the men, I painted women. Curves of water crashing voluptuously on invisible shores, lit from behind by rays of sunlight. Women as waves.
I let them pass there through an imaginary surf line, between the beach and the rising dune. A new path.