Hello Strangers…and some new work

Has it really been over two months since we last visited ?
Well how’ve ya been ?
I hope well and that you are still being safe out there.
Please tell me you’ve been vaccinated.
I hope you are enjoying the benefits of some time with old friends and new adventures.

We are taking baby steps as we navigate the brave new world.
Visits outside with the fully jabbed and picking bunches of beautiful flowers growing in the gardens.

INside however the pace has been anything but slow and cautious.
With all three galleries back open and eager for new work the brushes have been flying.
Though we are not, once again due to the pandemic, traveling north to Martha’s Vineyard, the Granary Gallery is going on with the show so the paintings had to make a run for it.

The best part of last year’s painting delivery nightmare was meeting our driver Nathan and this year he once again has came to our rescue and all the paintings for this year’s show are safe and snug in a studio in Western MA awaiting the second leg of their journey when the gallery van will pick them up and tote them to the island. We are jealous that they will feel those ocean breezes but thrilled to have made an enduring friendship with Nathan, his wife Thanh and their new pup Ali.

Here’s a snap of Ali listening to Pat’s stories…and her heart.

And here she is riding shotgun on the painting delivery.

But before we begin the annual rollout of all those Granary pieces I’m pleased to share two NEW paintings which are, as I write, winging their way out to Denver.

Gallery 1261 is having a Small Works show which opens on August 14, and the New Paintings may arrive in time for them to take to the LA Art Fair this summer.

Without further ado I give you…
Onion Moon Rising – 12 x 13

https://heatherneill.com/portfolio/onion-moon-rising/

And…

The first pea never makes it out of the garden – 12 x 14

https://heatherneill.com/portfolio/the-first-pea-never-makes-it-out-of-the-garden/

You seasoned patrons and friends will by now have checked out the new website features and be able to swiftly navigate to the Portfolio section and down to the Painter’s Notes to read the backstory on these little teacup mysteries.

While you do that I’m going to get back to work editing the images of the next batch of paintings which my camera managed to capture before they were framed and packaged for their road trip.

May your summer be full of rose sniffs and your kitchen filled with zucchini.

Love and green tomatoes from the studio, Heather

The Great Potato Planting of ’21

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” Margaret Atwood

And yesterday I did.

We aim for St. Pat’s Day as Potato Planting day. . .
but every day around here is Pat’s day
and today most especially as it is Herself’s BIRTHDAY !!!

And since this is a journal entry about the garden
this photo of the Eggplant Whisperer is most appropriate to celebrate her new found gardening prowess…

Well on their way to a parmesaned casserole near her soon.

Meanwhile in the studio nursery, we had around 50 lbs of seed potatoes chitting out for the last week. They arrived from The Maine Potato Lady the week before, and every available square inch of the studio was lined with boxes and dedicated lamps to aid in their preparation for planting.

Then out to the wheelbarrow they came . . .

Box the First.
Raking back Ruth

Next step was to rake back the matte of hay which had been snug and cozy under a heavy blanket of snow in the Ruth Stout Bed all winter. Exposing the rich organic matter underneath I am beginning to realize the work that our soil bound friends have been doing. . . or is that chewing . . . for the last few years. All that organic matter is building a substrate of nutrient rich medium for the veg and makes for easy planting.

Rake it back.
Toss on the spuds
Round the corner and up the back leg.

Then cover ’em back up with fresh hay.

And that’s job done.

Turning around you can get a peak of the RS annex which was added last fall.

The ground underneath that section, which only 5 months ago was the grass you see to the left in this pic, is still in transition. Covered with cardboard, a few inches of mulched leaves, and then a foot of loose hay. . .the grasses and weeds beneath are a muddy slick and, judging by past experience, will be for some time. So, the plan is for straw bales to provide some growing area this season and then the decomposing bales can be strewn in the fall to add another layer of goodness. By next year this section should be plantable.

The squash tower in the distance straddles those bales and two extra ones on the other side. Last year this method proved successful so we’ll try again.

The skinnier Pea Tower to the left got a boost of some compost added to the two rows on either side. Something for the Peas to ease into before having to contend with the hay.

Today’s rain is sealing the deal and gives the gardeners a chance to rest up.

So here’s to the wonders of the burgeoning Spring. . .

And celebrating the most wonderful Pat Lackey. . .

Happy Birthday My Love,

Opening Day – Granary Gallery Show

Here we are…it’s the morning of the Granary Gallery Show Opening

I want to personally thank all of you who have taken the time to read the string of Blog Posts which have lead up to today’s opening. You being with us for this ride and offering kind words of support and encouragement along the way has softened the edges of the rough parts and lightened the air here in the studio.

So…from our studio

To the red barn on Old County Road
on the island of Martha’s Vineyard

And into the homes of all you friends and patrons…

Wish We Were There… a short film from HN Studios

The Morning Bell – Painter’s Notes

Morning again here in the studio.

Before today’s Painter’s Notes I want to give you a heads up…

There are just four more days until the Granary Gallery Show opens…
Though, as you well know by now, there will not be an “Opening Reception”…
the gallery is very much OPEN and the staff are doing an amazing job and going out of their way to make a safe and welcoming environment for people to get in touch with art.

Herself and I have created a video aptly titled…”Wish We Were There” …by way of letting our island community know we are there with them…at least in spirit. The gallery sent me a list of questions and Pat agreed to read them to me on camera and you can expect some frivolity ensued.

I’ll be posting that video here on the blog on Sunday Morning… we hope you’ll pour a cup of tea and join us for that short studio visit.

So…4 days and counting…

That leaves three paintings to go…and today…

we go back to Menemsha.
I’ve spent so many hours on this dock that this painting almost painted itself.

The Morning Bell  –   24 x 30

One of my enduring memories of that most special
week we got to spend “living” in Menemsha
up there on Crick Hill
was wakening to the early morning
sounds of the harbor.

When the wind is right
you can hear the bouy bells
playing a rhythmic bass line
and the gulls picking out the melody

Before the charter engines
crank up you can still make out
the water lapping against the bigger boats
some ropes and chains a’ rattlin’
against the mighty masts
and…

If you’re really early enough…
the putt putt putter of Louie’s
trawler making her way out
for the first cast of the day.

So…
even though this particular painting
is righteously full
of the colors
that bring the harbor to life
for most artists

What I hear…
is just as evocative
as what you see.

Postcards from the Ledge – 10

Hello in there…

Bless you John Prine and Bette Midler for piercing my 20 year old heart with that song.
It pulled me by the teeth to the other side of a gripping depression and became a touchstone along the way for the next 40 years. I have always worn my fried egg on the outside…proudly because of you.

Me at 20 -1978

Etching from college portfolio  –  1978

So I just got off the phone with my pal Peter Follansbee. I’m throwing a link to his website here …click… so that you can spend some of that extra screen time that we all have these days to visit with him and his woodworking. He, like most of us creative types, is able to continue plying his craft and is producing some fabulous new work.

Both Peter and his wife Maureen are historians who worked at Plymoth Plantation so they have a unique perspective on the 17th century. Peter’s focus was primarily on all things wood while Maureen was the textile expert. So it was that today, when we were comparing quarantine notes in our social distancing phone chat, and I brought up my own next woodworking project… Peter said Maureen wrote an article about that. He’s gonna dig it up for me… and I’m all ears…because…

Laundry.

As I sat in the studio kitchen one morning last week…looking out at the same view I’ve been greeted with for over a decade…the Muses lit a match.

Spark…at the end of the walkway…the centerpiece of the Morag Gamble bed…were the washtubs that Susan gave me years ago for a planter. Deb’s begonias and a few annuals  bloom there every summer and brighten that corner. And the extra light that now shines there in the wake of the giant ash tree removal last year…was apparently just what the Muses needed.

Because…wait for it…they are WASH tubs.

This was the beginning of what turned out to be Olde Timey Sunday.

Well the true beginning was actually the two hours it took me to repair the hose faucet and run a line out to the tubs. But after that …well after I had to whittle a couple stoppers out of our stash of wine corks. But THEN we got it going.

The washing part was made so much easier with those tubs. But the next stage…wringing…eh not so much. My hands aren’t strong enough any more to do that. So I did some research. Of course there is a youtube video on that…and with that help I’ve figured out a way to build a wringer. Hopefully Maureen’s article about doing laundry in the 1600’s will give me a few other pointers. I’ll keep you posted on the making of the wringer…for now you can ponder on the parts list…a rolling pin and bungy cords were ordered from Amazon and the garage will need to be cleared out enough to get to the wood stack and the tools.

It always gives me an energy boost to have a new problem to solve and a project to build, and while the clothes were drying in the sunny breeze, Herself began clearing out the greenhouse…so we could get to the spinning wheel.

Because I scored two brand new fleece to spin !!!

Snowball…and Calico…

Beautiful fleece I found on Etsy from Aspendale Farm . 

A small farm in Idaho where Romney Sheep are raised and where they are kind enough to send an extra gift bag for safe storage…

One of the best days of our year is the trip in May to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, and one of the first dominoes to fall in our corner of this pandemic was the early cancellation of that festival. Having had to miss the last two years I was doubly sad. But social media came to the rescue and, after putting a query out to our resourceful peeps, I had several leads on where I might procure some spinning fleece.

One of the best parts of that side trip was reconnecting with Tom Knisely. A wonderful weaver friend of old who lives just over the hill from the studio and we have only now discovered that he has a new weaving/spinning retreat and workshop with his daughter Sara Bixler…oh the excitement as I get to anticipate the day when the vaccine arrives and we can go back out into the world …the very first place I will go is…

So now I’m all set.

The old wheel got some new grease.
When the weather gets just a bit warmer I’ll be out there in my most peaceful place with soft silky fiber steadily spinning onto the bobbin.

The pioneering theme closed out the day with a simple quiet rise…

And there is no better way to illustrate the way that all this hand work soothes the soul …

The Long Draw  –  2018

Stay frosty out there.

Postcards from the Ledge – 6

The last few days have been grim.
The siren calls from hospital workers,
the mounting numbers of casualties,
the criminally incompetent leadership from the oval office,
the crippling anxiety that washes over us…
wave after unrelenting wave.

The last few days have been sparkling.
The return of the indigo bunting outside my window,
flats of winter seedlings getting their first feel of wind,
Finnegan laying peacefully in the sunshine,
lazy conversations over the morning kitchen table with my love,
and the glorious unrelenting waves…
of that brilliant new green.

While I admit to finding myself frozen in my easel chair,
not able to summon the creative energy to pick up even the tiniest of brushes,
I am showing up every day.
I know the Muses are here and I’m listening,
but it sounds like static now…loudly buzzing and confusing.

And what I know about that
is to get up outta that chair and go outside.

The glorious gift of having Herself by our sides
during these stay at home days
means Finn and I are at our happiest in our happy place…
wallowing in the brightening colors of the studio garden…

My organizer using her superpower…

Anyone who needs or wants some of this plastic just holler…

While she sorted…I planted…

Two rows of peas planted in Ruth…which is a bit spicy to read back…

And…at the end of that glorious day…a bit of well earned sky chair rest…

So today’s painting will be a very early work which honors another of my love’s superpowers…

The Folder – 2000

This is quite simply inspired by my friend Rex. He is a poet. Our histories have walked side by side for over forty years. Our paths have criss-crossed over most of them. Our souls have always been as one.

And it is for Pat, my folder.

The Folder

Folded things speak well of you
when you’re out of the room.
They hold the near future captive,
like children about to go on recess
or sexual pleasure at the brim of control.
I think of the pressure of your hand
smoothing over the cloth napkin,
the bedsheet, the piece of clothing
that signals the meal to come,
the lovemaking, the spent day —
and how you stack the bath towels
as high as they’ll go, as a driver
well keep the fuel tank near full
during times of shortage. I step out
of the shower looking to the center
of my life, where you have folded it.
Creases will have nothing to do
with edges: It’s no accident
that ledges are ledges and valleys,
so far removed from any real
horizon, where people most often
choose to put down roots and grow.
I like to imagine that God, who,
faced with formlessness, folded
the world into manageable corners,
sent me you to repeat the gesture.
Rex Wilder

A pause in the madness…for the Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday Pat Lackey !!!!!!

There is no other human on the planet that I would rather be in quarantine with.

Your buddy Finn and I will do our best in this season of lock down to celebrate the wonders of you in our lives.  We will lay a golden carpet of forsythia blooms to brighten your step, take you on a treasure hunt to find the purple crocus, and serenade you as you soak up the sunny sky chair breezes.

Love and leaning berner kisses…your devoted pals.

A soft day on Black Point Pond

A soft day on Black Point Pond  –  16 x 24

This one is for Herself.

My stalwart champion
protector and defender
lover of the ocean
lover of straw hats
lover of me.

If you stand in front of the painting, The Study House,

look out the front door
and use your zoom lens
you will see the barest sliver
of Black Point Pond.

When I was working on this painting spring was in full bloom.
The studio garden was soaking up the warming sun, with spinach,
buttercrunch, land cress, hakuri turnips, cherry red radishes,
and purple sprouting broccoli filling our salad bowls with life itself.

One fine day Miss Pat came over to fetch a bowlful of spring
and poked her smiling face into the studio for a visit.
She noticed a photo tucked into the shelf behind my easel
and asked could she see it please.

It was a snap shot of the pond’s edge
with a woman strolling along
in a straw hat.

Oh, I LOVE this.
Are you going to paint it next.

No, I said, that’s just something the camera caught
while I was photographing the front yard through the door.

But I REALLY love this.
It is such a soft Vineyard moment.

And…there ya go.

My love
AND
My Muse.

This one’s for you Babe.