The Ariel Salome Painting

(1975-1999)

5' x 6' Acrylic on Formica-board

The Ariel Lome painting suffered an injury that changed it. In 1999 while living in a small redwood cabin in Humboldt County the large bolt holding my Ariel Lome painting to the wall worked loose and around 3 a.m. in the morning I heard and felt a large crash just inches above my head. The painting had fallen off the wall and hit a dresser near my bed which saved me from my head being bashed. But the corner of the dresser punctured the painting which because it wasn't canvas but formica-board left a jagged crushed spot I could not begin to repair. Only a professional restorer could and I wasn't and certainly couldn't afford such. What to do..I filled in the ragged hole with plastic putty and strengthened the back of the painting but of course the flat surface was gone for any hard-edged painting as I had done previously so I decided to try adding paint in my old pre-hard edged psychedelic texture style that I had actually wanted to get back into, finding my hard-edged psychedelic art technique no longer all that compelling. So I added texture to the damaged spot and lo and behold! This whimsical dancing figure appeared which I liked. A lot. Salome. And that is how the Ariel Lome painting became the Ariel Salome painting.