We dine out not because we are necessarily hungry for food. We are hungry for the experience. Usually, this means sharing the experience with others.  Since we are not cooking, serving, or cleaning up, we can focus on our tablemates.  But dining alone can also be a rewarding and meditative experience, not having to engage in anything but enjoying every bite. Maybe while reading a favorite book.  I learned this when traveling for my sales job years ago, and I still notice it in others.

In this show at the Seacoast Artist Association in December, you will see paintings of Seacoast NH and one from the legendary Taos Diner I was lucky to visit and was sad to hear it closed last year. I have special memories from all of these places.  I gravitate toward making art with stories, like the Dad having lunch with his daughters at one of my favorite cafés in Kittery. Another in Paris where I was watching from the street and it appeared that even though this fellow had apparently been stood up, he moved to a table and allowed the waiter to serve him his meal alone.  

In 2017, I shared a collaborative show with painter Peggy Murray of Lee, NH at the NH Art Association titled “Cafe Life” where I showed photographs I had taken of people dining locally and around the world, and Peggy exhibited her oil paintings.  It is exciting for me to now show oil paintings of my own.

During lockdown, not being able to meet friends for a meal out left one of the greatest longings for a lot of us, so I appreciate it even more now.  Connecting with friends over a meal is one of my favorite experiences, and I notice how it affects others when I look around the room.

As Virginia Woolf wrote in A Room of One’s Own, “A good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”