My father passed away on March 6 2024 at 12:24pm. I was so grateful I was able to spend time with him a few weeks before he left this mortal coil and return as energy back to the source.
The time with him, one on one, was very emotional and priceless and I was able to tell him everything that I was grateful for because of him and that I always remembered everything he ever did for me.
I decided I had an opportunity to turn my grief into inspiration and so the next day, I started to sketch out and begin to paint a watercolor painting for the DFW tribute band “Close to the YES” and inspired by legendary artist Roger Dean, the visionary artist behind most of the YES album covers from 1971-now.
Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.
I decided to “lift” a few iconic inspired imagery from some of his YES album covers and other various paintings. This was the first painting I had done in about 7 years and it came together from sketch to finished piece in about two weeks. I only worked on it when I wanted to, but once it started really forming, I had to work on it every day, especially since I had a deadline for the concert poster.
When it came to my concept, I knew that I needed some sort of visual trifecta to connect the images.
I knew it needed to have some wild looking tree with branches and leaves, rolling grass hills, water and blue sky at dusk with a hint of clouds and the orange sunlight illuminating everything. I wanted to have some structures in the distance with a few arches, a giant mushroom building with a curved walkway and a little silhouette of a man standing on the pathway in the distance.
I decided a wanted a 3 eyed cat to indicate we might not be on Earth but some other place, world or dimension. And I wanted a giant butterfly with eyes borrowed from Roger Dean again from one of my YES concert shirts that I love.
The name of this piece is: “The Eyes Honesty Can Achieve”, taken from the lyrics in Close to the Edge by YES. It seemed to make sense.
What’s even crazier is that a few months later, the cat from my painting manifested and literally jumped into my lap!
He is the SAME cat! My original intention was to put 11 stripes on his tail in the painting. Then I thought, maybe it was overkill and changed it 7 stripes instead. Well, he has 11 stripes on his tail! And the ear wisps. He’s even similar in gray tones. not a typical Tabby cat. He’s a silver tabby and shimmers.
I named him Anakin Skyscratcher – The Jedi Cat…hence the third eye. The weekend that he came into my life, happened to be by Mom’s birthday and she had passed away 5 years earlier. After the fact, I realized that I had adopted Anakin on her birthday!
She loved animals and even had had two cats for the last 7 years of her life, which was a blessing to her and them. They were both adopted together as a brother and sister from an animal shelter.
I haven’t had a pet in 20 years and It was a surprise to me, but it was absolutely perfect for both of us. He found a home and within one month I found a new home as well. And then everything shifted in wonderful ways for both of our lives.
Living surrounded by nature, wonderful friends and doing EVERYTHING CREATIVELY that you LOVE in LIFE is the most amazing blessing anyone could ever have in their lives, and I thank GOD every day for EVERYTHING!
