Village News - Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

FALLBROOK – Margaret Singleton O'Leary, a client, student, and friend, recently called Natasha Ragland and said, "Why don't you paint an 'Homage to Music'"?

Mona Lisa (Saxophone) is painted by Jack Ragland. Village News/Courtesy photo

Ragland's first painting in response to this suggestion was a guitar, since her family had one laying around. Then one of her piano students loaned her his trumpet to use in a still life. She found the shiny complex trumpet an interesting challenge to combine with other textures and colors. The trumpet has many symbolic connotations. Ragland chose to depict the trumpet played by angels as a wake-up.

Her father, Jack Ragland, chose to create an ambience of musical celebration with other musical instruments, flowers, and fruits. A friend lent them his antique saxophone. Since Jack Ragland had a reproduction of the Mona Lisa sitting in his studio, he listened to a sax version of the melody while he painted it, and gave it that title.

Submitted by Natasha Ragland.