Madison Avenue

Acrylic on canvas.

36x36x1"

Madison Avenue: A Mysterious Dame

She appeared one evening on Madison Avenue as though she had stepped out of another time.

No one knew her name. No one ever saw her arrive. She simply moved through the city wrapped in black, her face hidden beneath an enormous hat, revealing only a flash of porcelain skin and a perfectly painted red mouth.

People noticed her, of course. How could they not?

But she never seemed interested in being seen.

The turquoise and green of the city swirled around her—storefronts, traffic, money, fashion, noise—yet she remained perfectly composed. Untouchable. One hand rested against her chest as if protecting a secret she had carried for years.

Perhaps she was wealthy. Perhaps she had lost everything. Perhaps she was meeting a lover three blocks away.

Or perhaps she simply understood something the rest of us had forgotten:

Mystery is sometimes more seductive than being known.