Arts patron seeks commissioned piece

You may have heard of Lara before on these pages. She lives in James and Monica's neighborhood up in Alexandria. During my visits up there I've met her and become friends. She's a free spirit and creative and doesn't generally live life, she LIVES it. I first met her drinking James's homebrew in his backyard and found her to be a lot of fun.

Lara is an artist. Her locale is known as doubleWide art studio. Her pieces seem to JUMP out at me. The colors she uses are, as Dave Matthews screams in Grey Street, bold and bright. The textures are intriguing.

I now have a bare spot above the couch in the living room. A blank canvas so to speak. One of Lara's pieces pictured to the left, J, really "did it" for me and spoke to me. Just for kicks I asked if she ever sold her creations, and if so what the price would be for J. It really wouldn't fit the bill as J is a mere 8x11...inches. Not quite the size I'm looking for to fill the space.

BUT, she said, she could create a brand new piece for me. Just for me using J as a guideline and muse. SERIOUSLY? That would be so COOL! No one's ever made a custom art piece for me, let alone personally knowing the artist who created it from nothing.

Sunday I got the call from a paint-splattered Lara: the piece is done and do I like it? Do I like it? I took one look at it via our cellphones and again online to arrive at one conclusion: I absolutely LOVE it.

A personally commissioned 4' x 3' piece of art to go above the couch and stir up emotion, conversation, and generally just some plain old contemplation. It's untitled as of now, and the yellow may need to be touched up as it dries, but it is something created from the heart of an artist just for me. I can't wait to get up there on my next weekend off (that doesn't involve Cleveland Indians baseball) to pick it up.

What do you think of it?

Oh, and as an aside, she's throwing in J as an extra for me to give it a good home as well.