The reefs around Elbow Cay today are very different from the first time I laid eyes on them, twenty-five years ago.
This triptych started with three white canvases. I just painted reefs and fish and big lobsters and sea fans the way I remembered them — vivid, full, alive. They hang over our bed now, and sometimes I dream about being underwater, where the colors and creatures and coral are exactly as I remember them.
There is a poem by Ellen Bass called "How to Apologize." It is not really about apologies. It is about grief, and permission, and the audacity of hope. She writes about building a boat, and dreaming back everything lost. In one night.
This triptych is that night.
