Three Rings for Forty Circles - New Art For You (NAFY)

Three Gold Rings for Forty Circles

The wedding season extends from the months of May to October, and the most popular months to get married (the peak of the wedding season) is July and August. While most wedding ceremonies include the exchange of two rings between each couple, the exchange of a first ring (the engagement ring) occurs during the marriage proposal. And these three rings are placed on the couple’s ring fingers to symbolize the love bond between the two of them. Furthermore, because of the importance of this love bond, these rings are typically crafted from gold which was used as a symbol of wealth and status for centuries. Unlike the numerous metals that form in the Earth’s crust, gold is a precious metal that comes from outer space. And one of the most popular types of gold used today to create beautiful rings and other exquisite jewelry is eighteen karat (18k) gold (also known as 750 gold). I will talk about the karat definition later.

For background to this post, seven years ago in late July, my wife presented me with an exotic 8-day cruise to the Southern Caribbean to celebrate my birthday. And the stateroom was a balcony suite with all the amenities! During that cruise, we visited the island nations of Bonaire, Aruba, and the Dominican Republic. And when it comes to shore excursions, my wife and I have similar and different goals. She likes to visit a pristine sandy beach to gaze at the crystalline, turquoise water while lounging (to her heart’s content) on a beach chair in the sun and enjoying a romance novel or two. I also like to visit a pristine sandy beach and jump into that clear water for an up-close view of the colorful tropical fish while snorkeling to my heart’s content.

Now, because this was my birthday celebration cruise, she agreed to join me on a double-decker snorkel catamaran excursion to Bonaire National Marine Park that covers 2,700 hectares of coral reef, seagrass, and mangrove vegetation. And, when the Skipper dropped the anchor, she even geared up and plunged into the water with me for a guided snorkel and swim that included a variety of tropical fish such as blue tangs, trunkfish, damselfish, angelfish, parrotfish, rays, and trumpetfish. After the swim, we enjoyed unlimited rum punch and the festive carioca, rumba, and mazurka music while returning to shore. Once ashore, we were able to visit the local pristine sandy beach to lounge on a beach chair in the sun for a few hours before returning to the ship.

When we returned from the excursion, my wife suggested that we visit the cruise ship’s art gallery to see if any of the exhibited works were of interest to her. During a prior cruse three years earlier, she visited that ship’s on-board art auction and paid over $12,000 to purchase two paintings!

During that visit to the ship’s onboard art gallery, we found a few impressive pieces that generated a lively conversation between us. Nevertheless, at that time, I was already working on a life size painting of the two of us (entitled Sweet Thang) that is near completion, so she decided to forego purchasing someone else’s artwork. However, there were two surrealist paintings featuring brightly colored objects set against a Mars Black background that caught my eye. These paintings reminded me that I had not featured black as background color for a painting in over 20 years. So, once I completed Sweet Thang in September of that year, I began plans to create my own surrealistic paintings that featured brightly colored objects set against a Mars Black background with no concrete idea about what to paint. Six weeks later, the idea finally came to me as I observed my wife performing a segment of her exercise regimen using colorful Hola Hoops! The painting theme would be based on colorful circles, and three gold rings would appear prominent within that work of art.

Much like a marriage, surreal paintings express deeply held emotions. During the first three years of our marriage, my wife and I separated from one another on two occasions for about nine months each time. When we first came together, we had both recently emerged from predecessor marriages (of almost twenty years) that ended in divorce. While our challenges had to do with blending two families into one, we did learn (over time) to overcome that “baggage” and much like the famous saying, the “third time” (we rejoined our love bond) “was the charm!” And (as depicted in the painting) our three rings are 18k gold (which refers to a type of gold alloy that is composed of 75% pure gold and 25% other metals such as copper, silver, or palladium). Hence, each karat within gold jewelry (by definition) represents 1/24 of the gold alloy within that piece of jewelry. This proportion of gold to other metals makes 18k gold more durable and less prone to damage than 24k (or pure) gold. Okay for clarity, 14k gold is more durable (but less valuable) than 18k gold.

But how many other colorful circles needed to be incorporated into the surreal painting? That answer was revealed to me during a church sermon. In the Old Testament of the Bible, Moses stays on Mount Sinai for forty days and nights. In the New Testament, before his temptation, Jesus fasted forty days and nights in the Judean desert. So, in addition to the three 18k gold rings, the new surrealist painting, Forty Circles, features the imaginary results of a skilled person spinning multiple colorful hula hoops at the same time and – once the spinning stops – the hoops all fall together into a tangled mess. A section of Forty Circles captures the surrealistic bundle of hoops before they fall to the ground. Other sections of the painting mimic a slinky toy and a bull’s eye target, with the largest object being a bright yellow bracelet. Gold rings and prayer beads appear as symbols of love and religion and do not overlap with any other circular objects. Ninety-nine rectangular shapes make up the floor-like object that includes curved boarders on its left and right sides. The five arched faded lights symbolize the limits of our human experiences.