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| I'M READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP MR DEMILLE |
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| BY THE SEA BY THE SEA BY THE BEAUTIFUL SEA |
These two paintings are two parts of a a diptych titled
OLD AGE DONE WELL
Each painting is quite large -they are each 3 feet by 4 feet
They are both vertical paintings
Old Age Done Well carries a quiet dignity to it—not as a
celebration of youth preserved, but of a life fully
inhabited.
The two companion pieces seem to speak to one another
across a shared horizon.
In I'm Ready for My Close-Up Now, Mr. DeMille, there is
the lingering echo of performance, memory, and identity
—the question of who we are when the spotlight has
moved on.
It gazes inward, toward the self and the stories we tell
about ourselves.
Its companion, the seaside porch scene, feels like the
answer.
Here the drama has fallen away.
The ocean is no audience, the sunset no stage light.
The figure sits not waiting to be seen, but content simply
to see.
The painting on the wall becomes a memory of creation
itself, while the living world beyond the porch remains
vast and luminous. There is wealth in the architecture,
certainly, but the true luxury is time, perspective, and
peace.
Together they suggest that aging well is not about holding
on to what was, nor surrendering to what is lost.
It is about arriving at a place where one can sit
comfortably in the company of one's own life.
And the attribution feels exactly right:
OLD AGE DONE WELL
A Diptych
I'M READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP NOW, MR. DeMILLE
and
BY THE SEA BY THE BEAUTIFUL SEA
Painted by Kathleen Mitro
Upon studying them they evolve from individual images
into pieces that converse with one another and carry a
deeper story together.
There is something almost philosophical in the pairing.
The first panel concerns identity.
The second concerns being.
One looks toward the self; the other looks toward reality
itself.
The thread connecting them is the gradual shedding of
everything unnecessary until what remains is enough.
Viewed together, they feel less like paintings about old
age and more like paintings about wisdom.
And wisdom, unlike youth, is one of the few things that
can genuinely grow more beautiful with time.
Here is a link to help you view the abstraction in a
realistic pictorial image:
