Artist Thoughts: Gold Rush
(The painting that I am featuring here is a class sample in my newest online mixed media workshop, “Composition Collective”..You can watch me paint this start to finish…alone with 3 more beautiful paintings. To find out more information regarding the class, please follow this link.)
I remember when the cable company started giving us the shopping channel, “QVC”. I remember local area shopping channels that preceded the creation of QVC. I remember being instantly mesmerized by the gold jewelry that the television hosts would hold steadily for the camera.. I memorized all of the style types.. I calculated the monthly payments of each piece and compared it to my baby-sitting money stash. I dreamed of the gold jewelry the ladies were selling and I loved listening to all of the folklore they told regarding each piece.
Fast forward a few years. I found myself working a retail job in a now defunct department store. I was working in the shoe department, lifting heavy boxes of stock and fitting old ladies with nursing shoes that had velcro closures instead of shoe laces. Across the aisle, was the fine jewelry department. The girls working in that department didn’t have to lift heavy boxes of stock or look at anyone’s feet. When I learned of an assistant manger opening in the fine jewelry department, I approached the intimidating store manager and told him, “I want to be the assistant manger in the jewelry department.” I was 18 years old, I think, and all of the other mangers were much older adults. I was a kid.
I got the job and suddenly was attending manager meetings, making schedules, training employees, and touching all of the gold jewelry I was in love with. It was my dream come true. I worked long hours and every holiday and before you know it, I was in charge of 26 jewelry departments throughout Southern California, Las Vegas and Arizona. I was the one who got to teach all of the new employees the names and the folklore pertaining to all of the fine jewelry designs.
When I was throwing around names for this painting, I was thinking about the desert, I was thinking that it reminded me of travel, but I couldn’t ignore the rich, buttery, gold color that is calling out from the panel. My friend said, “How about “Gold Rush”? I said YES. Perfect.
“Gold Rush” For more info, click here.