Phoebe Brunner

Eliot Crowley “Night Moves” 5/23/22

Some years ago, my wife and I bought a painting by Phoebe Bruner to celebrate our anniversary. The painting is called Night Moves. Phoebe is a local Santa Barbara artist, extremely talented and popular. We now own two of her paintings. We got one as a wedding gift. Night Moves is the only one I have seen that has the slightest suggestion of human interaction. Most if not all others are scenic with wonderfully repetitive plant shapes with leading lines and are completely enjoyable to scan with your eyes for many moments at a time.

It was just that human suggestion that drew us to this painting. The painting is of a coastline at sunset with dark shadows on the shore. Just enough shadow detail to let the viewer know where they are. On a distant point of land is a stand of dark trees, and in those trees are two yellow glowing shapes that could only be lights from a building or structure of some human construction.

This is my ode to that painting. While her painting is detailed, and sharp mine is a blurred seascape along the Santa Barbara coast with lights of a distant house glowing through he darkness. My human suggestion in an otherwise scenic prose