That said, I came across the nicest comment on my old blog entry about Mark today. Jeff Choate, one of Mark's collectors had his home featured in St. Louis Homes Magazine in March and one of Mark's paintings is featured in the article.
Here's a better photo of it than what's in the article although it's shown very well there, too. I remember he called it Office Aquarium and everyone we worked with at ad agencies over the years will know EXACTLY what he was thinking about when he painted this one!
© 2007 Mark Weber/Jenny Berry. All Rights Reserved "Office Aquarium"
It was weird for me to see it because I remember when he painted this one. Made me smile to remember it. I'm always so neat about it when I work... total OCD... and he was always so messy. Paint everywhere. I remember this one specifically, I'd made him some food and yelled that it was ready and he said "Hold on this blue is really getting away from me. I can't leave it now!"
We both knew what that meant. We always said that unless you had to fight a painting through a trouble spot or even an ugly phase it could never reach a real place of greatness. Not that either one of us would ever be so presumptuous as to consider anything 'great' or not but it's like when you fight with it and there are moments when you think you're going to lose and then you bring it back to where you feel you've beaten it and you really love it, then it feels like a success. I totally remember him sitting down to eat several hours later absolutely covered in blue paint.
He told me the title and I made some crack about it being influenced by some of the ad agencies where we used to work but he denied it. He said it started getting wild with all the colors and energy and shapes when he was listening to an NPR show (which he constantly did when he worked) about coffee farmers!!!??? wha?... such a typical Mark answer. Gotta love him.
It helps me a lot when I think about the funny things he did. And I know that even though he didn't like the corporate setting... the people... he loved... he talked about them often, as if he'd just seen them a week ago.
Here's a link to the full article in St. Louis Homes March 2010. Sorry it took me so long to get to this Jeff. I haven't painted much in the past year either. But I'm doing better and I've been painting every day again for a couple weeks now. Hopefully I'll keep it up.
© 2010 St. Louis Homes & Lifestyles Magazine
I'm so glad you're the person that got this painting Jeff. It's a special one. One of my favorites. It was so cool to see it again. Thanks so much for sharing it with us. Jenny
