About Healing Presence

This painting might be my most popular image yet… it has been shared all over social media for years. When I first put it online, I didn’t take the time to add a watermark with my name, so I run across people who say they’ve been looking for the artist for years! I learned my lesson, but a number of my pictures got out on the web without my credit line, to my dismay.

The origin story is rather dramatic, more so than any other image I’ve done. In the late 1990’s I was living hand-to-mouth in Mount Shasta, CA, when I got a call from an author who wanted a book cover. She came to my studio to meet, and unfortunately brought her two hyperactive greyhound dogs. For about an hour we discussed the ideas and details of the image while the dogs barked incessantly, leaping and demanding attention. I heaved a sigh of relief when it was over and I was alone again! It wasn’t until much later that I realized I had forgotten to go over the important issue of assigned rights to the artwork. Big oops.

For about three months I worked on the image (I’m a sadly slow painter) as we emailed progress photos back and forth. Finally it was very close to complete, when I realized from her comments that she expected to own the original and all the rights for the low price we had negotiated. I had neglected to make clear that she was indeed getting a book cover, but all other rights and the original would be mine. This is standard in the illustration world, but we were both new to this, and she was furious about it. When the dust finally settled, we had a proper contract describing how she would now own the original and all rights for an increased fee. The art was finished and soon to be delivered when she called, furious again, because the contract I had sent did not include the exact date of delivery. The call ended with her cancelling the whole deal, demanding her money back!

Although it was a bit traumatic, it turned out to be the best thing for me. The original sold three weeks later for about twice as much as my fee would have been, and I retained rights to make prints. Over the years, I have received many notes about the deep and comforting effect Healing Presence has had… a happy result to a difficult birth!