I painted this as a tribute to devotion…the kind that is built patiently, day after day, and somehow still feels romantic decades later.
The 1975 yellow Volkswagen is not incidental. My father had one in the 1970s. So does my best friend. For me, the VW Bug has always carried the language of youth, optimism, and fun forward motion…of starting out with very little except faith in where you’re going and who you’re going with. It is a modest car, almost disarmingly so, and that humility felt essential. This painting was never meant to be about spectacle. It is about staying.
The figures are turned away from us on purpose. I wanted the viewer to witness intimacy without interrupting it…to stand behind them, as one might on a scenic overlook, aware that something meaningful is happening that doesn’t require explanation. Both couples who inspired this work (my parents, and my best friend and her husband) share a devotion that is active, not assumed. They date one another. They listen. They make space for each other’s ambitions. They help each other live their dreams, not as a sacrifice, but as a shared project.
This painting was created at the request of Lauren and Grady for their beach house in Destin, a place meant for rest, memory, and return. I thought about how a home by the sea becomes a chance to live life together with the long conversations, the quiet evenings, the sense of standing side by side and looking out rather than inward. The horizon here is expansive but gentle. The ocean is present, but calm. It felt important that the future be wide, but not threatening.
This piece… It is about choosing to stand close, to look in the same direction, and to keep going.
