Portland Art Museum, again

Sue and I spent the morning at the nearly-deserted Portland Art Museum. (The portrait in the background here is of Jo Ann Hardesty, by Henk Pender.) We hadn’t been there since before Covid, and it was like having a waking dream: familiar works and new, and this beautifully-crafted statement by one of the curators of a collection of portraits: 

…I find no line as pleasing as the slope of a soft shoulder. I find no color quite as beautiful as the glowing Campari red of sunny backlit ears. I am forever intoxicated by the lines at the corner of our eyes and the subtle complexity of the lower puffy eye socket —Storm Tharp.

Sue treated me to lunch (out, that miracle, also our first time dining in a restaurant since before Covid) afterwards, and having just read those words, I couldn’t resist snatching a quick photo of her across the table from me (Extra), hoping to catch “the subtle complexity of the lower puffy eye socket,” though her glasses somewhat disguised it.