Novels, Orange Phone

Original oil painting on deep profile canvas. I handcrafted the wood float-style frame using reclaimed oak slats used in local Finger Lakes wine production.

There's a very specific kind of summer afternoon that doesn't exist anymore. The kind where you were too young to drive, the neighborhood was quiet, and the day stretched out in front of you.

You might have earned some real money babysitting (I started at 11!) and then had the whole afternoon with nothing to do but read. Your grandmother turned up with another Trixie Belden tucked under her arm, picked up at a yard sale, because she knew you. Maybe it sat on your nightstand next to the phone.

That phone. Orange and shaped like something from the future. You'd pick it up and dial your best friend and talk for hours about nothing that mattered and everything that did, spinning the cord around your fingers, stretching it to its limit to get a little privacy from your parents or your little brother.

There was the required summer reading your English teacher assigned, The Outsiders, The Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, serious books pressed upon you by adults. And then there were the fun books like Trixie Belden and the Gatehouse Mystery and Minnow Vail, stacked on the nightstand for the hours in between; for entertaining yourself on long hot August afternoons.

That wallpaper. That phone. That quiet.

I painted this for anyone who remembers what a slow summer afternoon felt like before the whole world fit in your pocket.

Size: 16" x 16" x 2"

Shipping: $100.00 to ship to US address. Ships within 10 business days. Or, contact me to obtain a coupon code for free local pick up in Naples, NY.