One of the first paintings from long ago in 2011 when I decided to start painting again. I showed it to my muse at the time who chortled out a bemused “But You Have To Really Like Tomatoes.” The title stuck. I don’t show this painting, it lives in my kitchen over the wood stove getting smoke damaged and fly-specked making me laugh every time at the lower right flying tomato that, like Peter Pan, really needs Wendy to stitch the shadow firmly to keep it from flying away.
I saw the invitation to submit a piece to the “Burned Pots and Cooked Books” show at the Institute Library in New Haven, and thought that this was a good fit. My description of the colander in the painting: I have a colander that belonged to my grandmother, and then my mother, and now me. The tin is rubbing off. I use it every day for washing vegetables, draining pasta, draining hand-washing. I feel connected to a whole line of women that I have loved every time I see it hanging on the hook in the kitchen. I have had to pull it out of the trash when two different husbands tried to replace it with shinier ones. I plan on passing it to my daughter, but not yet, I am still using it.
Shelley Dell 