I believe that every painting is a self-portrait of the artist who created it… and this one is no exception. It is a portrait of me and my husband, Richard. Apart from being filled with private symbolism and deep personal meaning, the painting is named after one of the weird inside jokes we share. It is titled “And Then You Blink”. I seriously considered using this painting as the cover image for The Secret Kingdom. Instead, it became the inspiration for the author photo on the back of the book. As you can see, it shows the two of us subtly mimicking that pose.
The Weird Inside Joke:
Richard is a blogger. Years ago, when he discovered that you could insert a “mood” into posts, he selected one called “BUSY”. Sure enough, the word “busy” showed at the top of the post… accompanied by a frantic looking emoticon. It’s mouth was opening and closing as if it were talking really fast… and then it would blink. For some reason, I found this incredibly funny.
So, Richard would imitate the emoticon for me, moving his mouth really fast, he would say: “talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk…”
And I would add, “And then you blink.”
Michele Bledsoe 07/19/2014
