Stand Back for the Pie -- and the taste of summer condensed

Stand Back for the Pie

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 24 inches

Barbara Muir © 2013

I started this painting at the end of January.  We were deep
in winter, and I wanted the feeling of summer to be in
my studio.  It has been a great project, but I think I am
finished.  I may see one or two more things I want to
adjust tomorrow -- but I am happy looking at it.  It says
me, and my life.

This is what a summer table in my kitchen could look
like -- glutted with flowers, reeling with the pure
joy of all the bounty the summer offers.  And then
sour cherries are ready, and Steven, my sweet husband
bakes a pie.  This is usually an annual event, but last
summer our tree did not produce, and we were
desperate.  If you know someone in the Toronto
area who grows sour cherry trees, and expects to have
too many please let me know.

Cherry pie is a taste I love, that will always make me think
of my mother who baked one for me from the cherries
in our backyard at a different house when Christopher
was born, and of Steven -- our pie man.

When the first pie (he usually bakes several) is set
on the table, everything else moves back and lets
the pie take a bow (something the peonies find almost
impossible to do) -- but nothing beats Steven's cherry pie.

Have a-loving-the-thought-of-the-taste-of-summer day.