I am considering a new direction for my work. I want to give my paintings dreamlike qualities and to include an animal in each painting. I think of each animal as a “daimon.” Don’t worry, the daimons I paint are good. They are not demons!

NEW WORK

The subject in Me and My Daimon has a dreamy look, and the surreal floral pattern runs unbroken from the wall across the subject’s clothing. I like how the presence of an animal in a painting, whether in a dream or not, communicates the idea of a relationship.

Daimons are benevolent supernatural beings. They originated in the thinking of the ancient Greeks, who positioned these spirits between humans and the divine. It wasn’t until the second half of the second century CE that some daimons began to acquire evil qualities, becoming demons.

There are several ways to spell the name of this animal spirit: daimōn, daemon, daimon… I chose daimon so I wouldn’t have to use a diacritical mark and because it makes me think of the word “diamond.” Nowadays the word daimon may be used to describe an inner guiding light.

*Me and My Daimon*, watercolor on Aquabord, 20x16 inches

Ice Dream Café is an ice cream shop floating in the sky, obviously as a dream. One of the surreal elements is the tessellation I painted across most of the images. A tessellation is a special design spread over a surface; it is made of flat geometric shapes that are arranged so there are no gapping or overlapping edges.

***Ice Dream Café,*** watercolor, 12x12 inches

First three stages of ***Ice Dream Café***

*Ansel and Calli*, graphite, 7x4.5 inches

I used this drawing of two of my sister’s cats on holiday cards in 2023.

Ansel is the larger cat protecting Calli, the kitten. They are both Maine Coon cats, who are affectionate and large-growing. If you could see them now, you would see Calli has grown as large as Ansel — eighteen pounds!

Not surprisingly, the Maine Coon cat originated in Maine, and it became the official state cat in 1985.

There is a myth that Maine Coon cats resulted from domestic cats breeding with raccoons. It is just a myth.