This is the view directly across my desk. The painting of David is by a good friend of his who is a multi-media artist, singer-songwriter and musician who lives in Nashville, Joni Bishop. She is an exceptionally talented dulcimer player, too, so good when she first took up the dulcimer that she only had one lesson with David--he told her she didn't need to take lessons. When I walked into her house, it felt like a warm and cozy art studio with her paintings and one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted instruments in every room. Because I never knew David, Joni was one of the people who helped me go deeper to understand who David was inside. Joni appears several times in Pluck, I'll write more about her in the near future.
I looked at this portrait every day as I wrote and listened to his music. Sometimes, when I got stuck, I am not ashamed to tell you I would talk to it: c'mon David, please help me out here, will you? Believe it or not, that help immediately came more times than not.
Whenever I talked with Joni, I understand why she and David were friends--she is as kind and gentle a person as you can imagine. And she lives on that special plane that many creative people do.
Such people are gifts to the world, in my humble opinion.