This cardinal and his mate have been tap tap tapping on my studio window incessantly for …ever.
I have tried closing the blinds, leaving them half open, open all the way, hanging strings in the window… putting up tiny signs that say hush… and still…every day…he and his mate come back a’ knockin’.
I even suspect that this is the second generation because last year the female had a strange growth on her head…probably from knocking it all day…and this year it’s gone.
One morning this winter, while I was eating breakfast, a cardinal slammed into the kitchen door. I mean kamakazi. He didn’t make it and what with the three feet of snow on the ground the best I could do for him was to throw him in the garden. He sank like a stone. Yesterday I found the bright red feathers amongst the brilliant green chives.
Perhaps he was the patriarch and the current pair are keeping up the family tradition of trying to get into the studio…or just to get my attention…
Week three and I finally got a decent nights’ sleep and the long slow climb out of pneumonia is trending upward…
Creeping out of that fog it feels like the world has spun into high gear and I am a bit dazed. After the long cold months of dreaming my way through the winter… every corner of the studio has a new project calling…in some cases screaming…at me.
The new printer has arrived and we are preparing to launch the sale of prints published in our own studio and sold exclusively on our website next week. Emails back and forth with Ross, the webmaster…and testing of the new machine…and producing an announcement to be mailed out have the office hopping…
Outside the next phase of construction is underway in the studio garden… we’re going greener with some new raised beds in which to plant veggies to replenish our weakened immune systems…
Back inside the easel has this year’s mega panel endeavor waiting patiently for my energy level to return to normal. The panel is ambitious and I can’t wait to tackle the intense detail…so far it’s been weeks of building up the ground work interrupted by weeks of crawling back to bed…today for the first time I feel that tide turning.
And then last week my share of the Jupiter Moon Farm fall shearing arrived… this time I ordered raw fleece rather than the processed yarn. It is glorious and I won’t have to wait now until the May Sheep and Wool Festival to sit and spin my cares away. I am going to try and use this as a great big carrot to lead me back to the easel and only after a good days work of painting…allow myself to sit at the spinning wheel and let the healing fibers fly.
Through it all, right at my side, has been my little apprentice…
Finnegan is the healthiest of the bunch around here. She has both of her legs back under her now and is rehabbing nicely. She is more than ready to run with the big dogs again but it will be 6 more weeks or so of restricted exercise before she can really let loose. While I was writing this blog she decided that box of fleece left on the floor in the bathroom should be rearranged… the trail leads through the kitchen, down the hall, and right to my easel chair…
I get the message…back to work !
Stay tuned for updates on all these projects and more… H
The call came in at 3:30am from the hard working vet that Finn was out of surgery and doing well. I had caved in at midnight so it was early this morning that I got the message. Now my flu ravaged body may still be weary but my spirits are high. By this time next week all members of my little family should be off of antibiotics and we can say good riddance to displaysed elbows and rattling pneumonic lungs and maybe even to … snow ???
I’ve got to pass along our thanks to all of you who have been checking in and offering help and that all important compassionate ear of support… you will never know how those words and gestures of kindness reach in and lift us up.
One person who has done some heavy lifting in that department is our friend Saren. She has talked me down off of many a ledge especially with dear Finnegan’s trials. I was checking in with her early this morning and felt like a corner has been turned. The sun is shining, there is a definite warming in the air, and when I took the time to look I found the first signs of spring in the studio yard…
Can I get a witness ???
Through the darkest days of this long hard winter I’ve been taking myself to one of the happiest and most anticipated events of my year…the Sheep and Wool Festival !
The warm sunny first weekend in May when the Howard County Fairgrounds fill up with color and fiber and everything sheep. The crowd is full of my kind of people…old back to nature hippies who dress in sensible clothes and parade their knitted and woven creations and scour through the straw strewn farm shed stall to replenish their supplies of yarn and fleece and needles and sheep dip, etc.
There are many happy memories there for us and I’m so excitedly looking forward to making that trip this year…we may go both days !
My spinning wheel waits behind the snow shovel…
And I’ve got one great big panel up on the easel that needs to be finished before then…
But by golly I can feel it getting closer…I am dreaming now of coming home with a nice bag of fleece in the truck and oiling up the old wheel and sitting on the warm sunny porch with Finnegan stealing bits of wool and running down the walkway with it flying up over her shoulders in triumph…
Sitting here in the studio looking at mountains of snow.
Three days of hard labor with the snow shovels and monster blower machine thingy and I am so grateful that all I have to lift today is a triple ought sable haired brush.
At the height of the blizzard I took this shot from the studio window…
And here’s a look at a painting that I worked on after our first snow storm back in December…almost the same view…just pan over to the right a bit more…
And a look at the labyrinth that I have to shovel out for Finn each time it snows so her mending legs have a better than fair chance out there in the tundra…
And the Apprentice Herself tucked into the snow fort that has melted some but was well over her head a day or so ago…
The good news is that we finally got Miss Pat out of the lane and up to town. Her cabin fever was approaching the red zone so even the laundromat was looking good !
Blueberry pancakes for both of my valentines this morning to fortify another day of winter survival adventures…and I shall be more than content to paint the day away and know that I am so well loved by my two sweeties.
Every so often I rotate the stack of reference books in the stacks on my studio kitchen table and dip into old volumes to find new treasures. In that way I always find something that I’ve overlooked or was not ready to see before and a window is opened for the muses to shove me through.
Such was the case last month when I was paging through…
I came across a watercolor that my leaky memory has no memory of ever seeing before… Baron Philippe (1981)…
Something clicked and I began to sketch out an idea for a response….
I’ve been working on a series of studio still lifes and this gave me a chance to pull together some of the old props that have been living in the old studio (now renamed the POD ).
The oil lamp was Cousin Ed’s and one of the few treasures of his we were able to purchase back from the auction of his posessions. The empty wine bottle is courtesy of our holiday feast with D and S. The ladies handkerchief was one of Polly’s. The teacup is from Sue’s grandmother. The chair was from the old farmhouse across the road and is a very old shaker style ladderback that somewhere along the way had the rockers sawed off of so it is now a slipper chair. The little porcelain doll in her silky purple gown is a gift from Chris. The cane was a flea market find and has the whisper of a serpent carved in the handle. The bottle was from an antique store purchased on the day we went to the Amish country to pick out Finnegan. The uniform has appeared in several other paintings and was an old hollywood costume found on Ebay years ago. The shell is from Sengy pond on the Vineyard. I don’t remember from whence the table came but the old wooden floor is the very foundation of my new studio. And the rest… is pure folly.
There are homages here to all three generations of Wyeths and I humbly submit my tribute to them… The Baroness.
It is deep cold winter now and when I leave the studio at night the furnace is turned low and I shut off every light except the string of tiny white lights that wind from the porch … along the picket fence…up over the garage … and down the path to light my way home.
When my eager apprentice wakes me in the early morning it is night black dark as we make our way to work and those lights are there to welcome us like hundreds of tiny muses.
This morning, like all the others, while waiting for me to get our breakfast ready, Finnegan went to get the paints out for the day’s palette … but she came running into the kitchen with a surprised look on her face.
…this is what she found…
Now I have always known that the muses have a keen sense of humor. And I have often come across evidence of “night play” in the studio. But this little tableaux shows some promise… and I may just see where this road takes us.
My favorite living female writer, Laurie R. King, is launching her upcoming book in the Mary Russell series, The God of the Hive. She has a twenty week build up planned and at the onset has posed a question on her blog and facebook site… Why are there no great women artists ?
Now, as many of you can imagine, I take great umbrage at this but she is referring in part to one of her first published books, A Grave Talent, in which she builds a character based on the query, “What would Rembrandt look like if he were a woman”.
Since you have recently seen that The Rembrandt Book takes pride of place on my studio kitchen table, I thought it might be interesting to bring her question over here for my readers to ponder. I know all you women of paint will have an opinion…and those of pen and pencils alike.
Here for your purusal …click on the painting here for a link to read her blog entry… and my comments are below.
Now this is a subject that I can sit in front of the fireplace (or perhaps easel ) and really warm up to…and… since the biggest book among those which the muses have currently stacked on my studio kitchen table is Gary Schwartz’, The Rembrandt Book ( see blog entry for details…www.hnartisan.wordpress.com )… here are some new layers to ponder in respect to your premises. I would suggest that, at the core, it is the drive to create rather than the need to express a particular vision of the world that possesses the artist. Like an athletes’ adrenaline high, the act of creating is an intensely solitary pursuit which might contribute to the egomaniacal aspects. And the pursuit is one of beauty, and when and if that achieves common ground with the viewer…the elusive experience of the sublime. As an artist that is not my goal but a rare and precious byproduct of the journey.
Even as a female artist I might take a bit of offense at the tone of the “pathological” degree of self-importance…but my oh so patient and supportive partner Pat will vouch for the “sucking every scrap of energy in their vicinity” part of your description. Does this not also apply to the art of the writer ? What we focus on expands and if the goal is to constantly raise the bar, paint better, write better, I know for my own self that it is taking more effort and concentration, never less, to dig deeper with each brushstroke. And though the muses make regular appearances, the energy to meet those expectations has to come from within and as I grow older, as in all things, this requires a good deal more umph than it used to. My constant refrain and whining to Pat is how I just want to shut out the rest of the world so I can paint.
Innate talent does separate the cream from the milk but in Rembrandt’s day women were not allowed into the guilds so the formal aspects of training could not even give her the tools to begin to paint let alone rise to the level of “great artist”. A subjective category such as that takes generations to build and, since this last century did offer women the opportunity to be taught the trade, you are beginning to see, as Jacki pointed out with the NMWA, the history books recognizing … us. Even today I meet that boys club wall on a regular basis. Can’t imagine what Frieda and Georgia had to deal with.
And you’re right. To be a “great artist” or writer or musician or cpa is a full time job. The “practical applications of The Feminine” (if by that you mean housework, childrearing and laundry, etc. ) do cramp the creative drive. But I have come to see that this is no longer a gender crisis…just ask the three men in our art group on the vineyard who are parents and desperate to carve out blocks of time in their studios and oh so jealous of my gate keeper Pat.
So now you’ve gotten me going and I will carry this dialogue over to my blog and see what the readers there have to offer, and promote your new book in the wake of the conversation. And, you have made one more sale as I have gone to Audible and downloaded A Grave Talent to listen to again but now with the backstory. And, since this finds me FINALLY listening to the last Russell adventure…while I paint the snowy landscape outside of my studio window…I am going to get right on that Russellscape painting when it’s finished.
Oh the muses… yours in greatness… and humility.
Please feel free to add your own thoughts here and do take a minute to explore her website… the true spirit of Sherlock Holmes lives therein…as well as many others among my most beloved storybook characters.
As those of you know who have visited the studio, you will always find an empty chair at the kitchen table but you definitely have to work hard to clear a space to rest your elbows. There are always piles of books and stacks of Gazettes in various stages of perusal. Most are newly collected reference materials, art books, bird books, history books, and some are old dog-eared bookmarked standards that I dip back into often depending on what is on the easel or what is on my mind.
Here’s a look at what’s on the table for this winter’s reading…
While on the Vineyard my friend Ted gave me his library copy of Vanity Fair magazine to read. He said there was an article about a new Rockwell book, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera by Ron Schick, that Ted thought was sorta fun which shows the photos Rockwell took for some of his paintings. It was the first book ordered when I got home and, as usual, Ted’s right on. I brought out the magnifying glass for this one and keep returning to certain images finding something new each time. It cleverly illustrates the subtle choices that the artist made to go beyond the photograph changing color, expression, positions and backgrounds to enhance and often change the narrative.
While reading Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine I came across a review of the new Rembrandt book by Gary Schwartz and so that made it to the pile. As my friend Peter will tell you I’m more interested in the pictures than the scholarly text but I’ve forced myself to read a bit of it and have learned a thing or two.
In keeping with the Dutch theme I picked up a little book on Bruegel, the elder, Bruegel: The Complete Paintings by Rose-Marie Hagen. It has good reproductions and an easy to read bit of background prose and I have spent hours already with the magnifying glass studying the detail.
At first I was paying attention mostly to the landscapes. I’ve been watching the winter come onto the farm across the street and as the trees lose their leaves and the field corn dries to a brittle umber, the stone barn, farmhouse and outbuildings are revealed. With the raking december sunlight in the early morning the colors reminded me of the Bruegel palette. Now that the storm has passed and the whole scene is blanketed in a foot of snow it has come alive like so many of his little dutch villages. I decided a couple days ago to paint the view outside of my easel window while that snow is still here…and now when I dip into this book it’s all about the red that he uses. Like the cardinals at my feeders.
And no table of mine would be complete without a couple of Wyeth references. I picked up a new one on our trip to the Brandywine River Museum last week but it didn’t have enough going to keep it in the top ten stack. Instead I reached for the richer volume of Andy’s work, Andrew Wyeth, Mystery and Magic .
The Muses led me to a previously overlooked little gem of a painting, Baron Philippe. Within a few minutes I had gathered some dusty props and the sketchbook and come up with an answer of sorts…The Baroness. Stay tuned for that one.
The other old favorite that has been moved to the top of the pile (no pun intended) is the museum publication, History and Romance, Works by Howard Pyle. Moonlight on a snowy lane…he’s got it down.
I’ve linked the books and images here to the Amazon site and the BR Museum site, not as a promotion but to make it easier for you to get more information. Of course in doing that I have come across two more books to add to the collection. It is Christmas eve after all …
Merry winter to you all from our studio kitchen table…
Three years ago when we bought the house next door and turned it into my studio I was worried about the coming winter and 200 more feet of driveway to shovel. We’ve lived in the log cabin home for almost 20 years now and Pat and I, two middle aged and determined women, had shoveled our quarter mile of lane and then some with gusto if not with sore backs. But now we are older and with the additional footage it seemed time to join the rest of suburbia and buy a loud and dangerous machine that could do the work of two women.
That was the beginning of the curse. We have had no snow since. Ice yes. One or two mighty blows that could be removed with the broom. But nothing that even remotely called for the orange beast that takes up valuable floor space in the garage. Until yesterday that is.
An honest to goodness nor’easter, that most of you probably shared in your home towns, has dumped over a foot of perfect snow blower snow on our little patch of the planet. At 5:55 I was up, yes that number thing is still happening, and shoveled a path to the garage. By 9am most of the neighborhood and all of our driveways had been cleared …and on one tank of gas.
It’s 11am now, one hot shower and one warm meal later I am ready to settle in and paint. That’s IF I can hold a brush in this hand that is still shaking from holding on to that mighty machine.
Here are some pics of the studio snowstorm… from the photo I took the day before of the farm across the street that looked like a Breughal landscape to me…and the progression of snowfall recorded by the bird house Walt made to resemble the studio…to the log cabin evening festivities that included the traditional mushroom soup making and pecan puff cookie orgie (I took a pic of the Joy of Cooking to show just how popular that recipe is…I write some little journal note each time I use a recipe and this one dates back to the 80’s)…to the shots from this morning when I had the whole neighborhood to myself and the birds…and then to my apprentice who has finally had a taste of the real stuff for which she was born to glide through regally .
You all stay safe out there and have a hot toddy or two for us !
