This artwork is half an inch thick. It mounts onto a wall using a cleat, which holds it flat against any wall. I love to paint the moon. I began thinking about that period of time when the moon is absent from our skies. It is not really "not there". It is there, but light conditions do not permit us to see it. I've painted a number of "new moons", stopping at different places of this thought process. The energy of a new moon is subtle and suggestive. It requires faith. The title hails from a poem by Wendell Berry, in which he describes the stars above as "day blind" when the sun is shining on us.

"The Peace of Wild Things"

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Oil with 23k gold on panel.

Where is the moon when it is "new"?