Three years ago my friends welcomed baby Aliot. 

Visiting, I caught a lucky photograph.

Gerard with his large, life worn hands cradling their new born.

The image spoke so clearly to me of a fathers love. 

I painted it.

For more than two years this small painting hung alone.

Until at a Leichhardt cafe I noticed a woman breastfeeding her baby.

At a modest, oblique angle from my table.

Tender, matter of fact, natural, beautiful.

I didn’t take a photograph!

But knew I’d found the complement I was seeking.

The paintings now hang paired, either side of a fireplace.

I like what they say to me about love.

Yet sense I barely chipped an ice cube from a glacier.

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