Lyrics and Music by Judy Reagan

Judy Reagan speaks about the song:

When I wrote the song, I had just read Tillie Olsen's book "Silences," which is about reasons that creative people wind up "silenced" by the pressures of daily life. I was chatting with a woman who, in talking about her own creative life, described herself as a Sunday painter because her family and job had taken up all the other time she had. The phrase opened the gate on the song.

© 1982 Wild Patience Records

She's just a Sunday painter, she only paints her magic Sundays
She makes the brushes dance, the faces that she paints entrance you Sundays

But Monday evening do the wash, Tuesday evening clean the house
Wednesday take her mother to the doctor

She'd like to write a novel, too much pain, it's too much trouble most days
The messages she'd like to weave would snare your soul make you believe in most days
But Thursday evening late a work, Friday evening somehow goes
Saturday spend hours with the shopping

Where has the artist in her gone?
It seems to take all her time and patience to hang on.

There sits the old piano, catching dust its music rusty these days
A sad, forgotten friend, its usefulness come to an end these days
Her mistress has no time to play serving food on plastic trays
Accompanied by songs upon the juke box

She dreamed she'd be a dancer, feet would move her body'd answer someday
But her dreams have lost their power, like the milk it's left, it's sour somedays
Her dancing took a lonely seat when little sisters had to eat
Dancing's just a bauble for the rich girls

When did the artist in her die?
Somewhere between the push and pulling of her woman's life

She's just a Sunday painter, she only paints her magic Sundays
She's just a Sunday painter, she only paints on Sundays...