This painting of Joan Brown’s, Noel in the Kitchen from 1964 shows her early concentration on subjects more domestic and personal than her other Bay Area figurative colleagues and mentors. This is her son Noel reaching toward the counter as his pjs slip away surrounded by two dogs as big as he is. Brown and Manuel Neri were in the midst of family life and the excitement of their work which in Brown’s case extended to thick impasto. “I loved what happened when I was using the trowel…the physical exuberance of just whipping through it with a giant brush”