Ron is standing in Vietnam, holding a small mirror while another soldier shaves. Behind them are tents and sandbags. Somewhere beyond this ordinary morning, there is a war going on.
Ron was my husband Mike's best friend in Vietnam. Unlike the young man I painted in Elsewhere, Ron is someone I eventually came to know. I knew his humor and quick wit, and I knew the friendship between him and Mike had survived Vietnam and the years that followed. When Mike came out, Ron accepted him. Their friendship simply continued.
Painting Just Another Day, I kept returning to the ordinariness of the photograph. One man shaving. Another holding the mirror. No battle. No heroics. No ceremony. Just two young soldiers beginning another day.
We rarely recognize the important moments while we are living them. Sometimes they look like nothing more than just another day.
The Story Behind the Painting
Just Another Day is part of an unfolding group of paintings drawn from photographs of Mike and the people he knew during his service in Vietnam. It follows Elsewhere, a painting of Mike at twenty-five, sitting beside the water in Phan Thiết.
