“Red Rain”

Created about the same time as “Let It Come Down,” both have Shakespearian influences. The latter focuses on a phrase and moment in Macbeth when Banquo meets his demise, but “Red Rain” is more a depiction of an invented Shakespearian play never written. A tragic king in love, a kidnapping on horseback, a duck-like Ophelia? Who knows? But the mood was always in line with a tragic play. Based on photographs of a particular bridge that joined two Amish fields, the finished painting has nearly no resemblance to where I started.