50x55 Oil on panel ©2004 A Call to Artists Inspiration is behind the Blue Curtain. At the time I painted this, I went to see the Dalai Lama in Tucson. I realized that he was the same size (because of my distance from the stage) and he had been wearing the same intense red color as the tiny muse who awaits the arriving supplicants. Before seeing the Dalai Lama, I had left the painting (unfinished) to travel to Turkey and I had wondered if there was anything in the painting that I would see in Turkey, as sometimes paintings do foretell the future. When we arrived at our hotel in Istanbul, we were greeted by two flat-backed eagle statues atop the entry’s banisters. I had already painted one in the painting. It is facing in, looking toward the blue curtain and suggests my return to the painting.