The adopter, Joan Mellon, writes:

This is part of the letter I wrote to the artist asking to adopt this painting:

Logging onto FAAN and seeing the “new” submissions, I immediately responded to “Gather Round” not knowing who had created it.

I have been interested in the idea of portraiture for a long time and “Gather Round” seems to me to be a portrait of every person, a depiction of “Everyman” as described in the short Medieval drama by that name.

The red skeletal outline with all those individual squiggles “inside” (these could be seen as figures or words or pictograms which combine both figures and words), seems to me to represent the human situation—how each of us represents humanity-at-large while being filled with individual thoughts, imaginings, etc., i.e. the squiggles.

Ultimately, it is the liveliness of this painting—the free and thoughtful manner in which it is painted—that makes me want to adopt it and hang it in my home.

The fact that “Gather Round” was created by an artist whose work I know and admire, will only add to my pleasure in having it join my family.