Misty Reflections
One abstract painting, three very different interpretations, and far too many title
suggestions.
30 September 2026
My family attempted to name my painting, and things deteriorated rapidly.
This painting actually began as something completely different. It was an orange and blue abstract that had been hanging around my studio for quite a while. It was one of those paintings I knew I would eventually return to when an idea presented itself for where to take it next.
Then, about a month ago, I made a balloon splatter painting.
Apparently I underestimated just how enthusiastic a paint-filled balloon could be.
Paint made its way across the room and landed on several nearby paintings, including this one. Fortunately, none of the casualties were paintings I was particularly worried about, and the orange and blue painting was already destined for change anyway.
A few weeks later, it called to me.
I didn’t have much of a plan. I began covering portions of the original painting with blues, grays, turquoise, white and muted reds, scraping and layering as I went. I allowed pieces of the original painting to remain visible underneath. Tiny flashes of orange and yellow continued to peek through the new surface.
When I stopped, I rather liked what had emerged.
There was a moodiness to it that immediately appealed to me. I began to see hints of a tree-lined hill, with the last rays of the sun peering through its tree trunks, and perhaps an archipelago with miniature islands reflecting in the water below.
Naturally, I asked my family what they saw.
And this is where the naming chaos began!
My son looked at my moody, atmospheric, slightly mysterious painting and announced that it reminded him of candy.
His title suggestions were Candy Cane Lane, Candy Land, and Gum Drop Valley.
Clearly he had sugar on the brain.
I stared at the painting again.
Apparently, while I had been contemplating reflections and mysterious landscapes, my nine-year-old had been wandering through a valley of gumdrops.
Then Tim joined the discussion.
After hearing my son’s suggestion of Candy Cane Lane, he studied the painting and offered:
“Maybe it’s Candy Cane Lane after an explosion.”
At this point, the naming process had completely taken a left turn.
However, Tim’s ridiculous suggestion was strangely appropriate.
The entire reason I had painted over the original piece was because it had been hit by flying paint from the balloon splatter explosion.
There actually had been an explosion.
Not quite the catastrophic destruction of Candy Cane Lane, admittedly, but close enough that I could no longer dismiss the title entirely.
Meanwhile, I continued staring at the painting and came up with Moody Blues. That eventually became Moody Reflections, then simply Reflections, and finally Misty Reflections.
And because apparently the situation had not deteriorated enough, I briefly suggested The Mood After the Candy Cane Explosion.
Thankfully, no one allowed that name to become permanent.
But somewhere among all the ridiculous title suggestions, I realized that the naming process had become an unexpectedly perfect example of one of the things I love about abstract art.
We were all looking at exactly the same painting.
I saw moodiness, water, reflections and fragments of light.
My son saw candy.
Tim apparently saw the aftermath of a confectionery disaster.
None of us had been told what the painting was supposed to represent, because I didn’t know either. There was no scene I had intentionally painted for them to recognize. We each brought our own imagination to it and found something different.
And perhaps that is what I like most about this piece.
The more I look at it, the less interested I am in deciding what those shapes actually are.
They can be buildings.
They can be reflections.
They can be remnants of the painting underneath.
They can even be, if you happen to be nine years old, gumdrops.
But I have decided to stick with Misty Reflections.
It describes what I see within the painting without explaining too much. But it also seems appropriate for a piece that caused three people to look at the same collection of colors and marks and reflect completely different images back onto it.
Regardless of the official title on the back of the canvas, I suspect that in our house, this painting will forever be known as Candy Cane Lane After the Explosion. 🤣
Misty Reflections 22.5 × 30.5 cm