Category: News Flash !
It’s FINISHED !!!!
After a year and a half in preparation,
two weeks getting the composition just right,
one solid month of painting…and painting…and painting,
I offer you…
well, I don’t have a title yet…but here is the final apple series painting…
( remember these are just iphone photos so we’ll all have to wait for it to be varnished and professionally shot…but you’ve been waiting much more patiently than I have…so….)
And here are a couple detail shots with the parts I’ve been hiding…
I usually reserve the treat of sushi for after I’ve sold a painting…but in this case Pat is willing to indulge me.
Whew…I’m ready to have some fun with teacups now.
Nighty night.
Memorable…
There was a surprising gift under the studio tree this week…
John Seed has included my painting, The Beginner…
in his Huffington Post Blog as one of the top 10 Mememorable Paintings of 2011 . The painting is currently on display in the Small Works Exhibition at Gallery 1261 in Denver, CO.
From the depths of my creative hibernation… I thank you John.
Here’s the extended snippet of the comments I sent to John with my thoughts about the work…
I’ve got this friend Ted who just turned 95 and lives on Martha’s Vineyard.
Ted was a high school art teacher and artist and has spent almost a whole century now inspiring and encouraging artists. I met Ted about 10 years ago and he has been “schooling me” ever since. (I’m working right now on a painting of him in an apple orchard which he posed for last fall.)
We talk often over the phone as he lives alone now but when we are on the Vineyard we spend a lot of time with Ted.
His house is chock-a-block full of antiques and stories to go with each one.
I noticed a tin can in his kitchen one day that had a bunch of those old pencils in it.
Wonderful chunky thick lead Dixon pencils that he used to introduce younger students to drawing.
I got up the nerve on our last visit to ask him if I could have one and he said, “Oh, those old things…here take the lot”.
When I got them home to the Pennsylvania studio and took a closer look I saw that they have the word “Beginners” embossed on them. And, since I’ve recently been hammering home the importance of a strong foundation in drawing skills to a couple of our grandsons who have brought their art questions to my studio… the idea of pencil as prop began to congeal.
The pile of rocks which are from the beach in Chilmark brought it full circle back to Ted and the tiny swiss army knife was one of the few items I brought home from Florida where I had to take my father off of life support earlier this year. That experience and it’s wake have been slowly filtering into my work in some quite unexpected ways. So, while I wasn’t aware of this until I just wrote this out for you, I guess it weaves a thread through three generations… with the iconic pencil as talisman.
Still time…
…to order studio prints for the holidays.
Our little studio workshop has been buzzing with print orders this week and Pat has been making daily runs to Fedex in the sleigh…
I’ve just updated the website but if you don’t see the painting that you want a print of…or if you have other questions about the ordering process…please don’t hesitate to contact us… hnartisan@comcast.net
Ho Ho Ho !
Granary Gallery Show !
For a sneak peak at the NEW PAINTINGS click on the ship…
DECADENCE…
The show is about to open… and the EVOKE Contemporary Gallery in Santa Fe has a sneak preview up on their website…
CLICK HERE to view the artwork and take a personal tour with curator John O’Hern.
Martha’s sweet goodbye…
And HELLO !
For 19 years Martha has been a trusty, loyal and sassy set of wheels for Miss Pat. Many of you have ridden in Martha, or been picked up at airports, or driven for a swim at the lake, or over the river and through the woods to and from Gran’s house, or buckled your children’s car seats in, or had your backpacks and hiking gear stowed in the trunk, or your prom date’s dress tucked safely in, or helped to load her up with mulch or bales of hay, or waved as Gran drove her slowly away from your houses. Coming or going…this blue Volvo and Pat Lackey have been one undifferentiated ego mass …from hello… and all who have had the pleasure of coming along for the ride have been kept safe by her dearold machine.
We knew the time was soon approaching when we would need to think about letting her ease into retirement. And for years, literally thousands of miles, Pat worried that Martha might be on her last legs. I mean really…. read this number carefully…
Our only serious concern was that Volvo only put six spaces on this odometer. Her magician of a mechanic Shane has kept this old girl humming for almost half a million miles. And Herself has been religious about keeping Martha oiled up and shiny.
It came down to air. Really WE gave out before she did. One more summer without air-conditioning was the final straw. But still… the thought of having to give her over to an auto auction…to a STRANGER ! Well, it just was too hard to bear. But as luck would have it, our grandson Isaac was in need of a car and he jumped at the change to, in his words, “take her off our hands”.
So we set Bob to the task of finding us a new ride and he sure got us a sweet one…and… at only 2004…such a youngster !
So Isaac and Pete met us at the dealership this morning and we signed on the dotted line. Pat got roses and I got a hat and we all got Wilbur chocolate and we each got keys. Isaac got a lesson in where the fuses are…every single thing that has ever gone wrong with this car has been fixed with a 5 dollar fuse…
and she got some shiny new plates…
and now Martha will get to do some city driving with a dreadlocked dude at the wheel. We know she’s in good hands because she raised all of the grandchildren. Isaac’s DNA and crumbs from his ice cream cones are an important part of her patina. So as hard as it was for Pat to say goodbye to her longtime companion and protector…it was with great pride that she could hand the keys, to a car in such great shape with over 440,000 well earned miles on her, to her grandson who will get some serious bragging rights and will take her for the next half a million miles.
Thank you for keeping my family safe Martha, I lift my chocolate bar to you !
the Pinkletinks are back !!!
NEWSFLASH…Vineyard Gazette reports that the Pinkletinks have been heard on the island…
but are they now in danger from a deadly fungus ??? Read for yourselves… ?Frog Fungus Nothing to Croak About by Peter Brannen
Huffington Post Blog
Many thanks to John Seed for including me in this week’s blog about artists and their studios…
click on the image below to read the blog and there’s a window on the right where you can vote for your favs !
Mother’s Darts
available at the Granary Gallery
New Gallery Representation
I don’t know where the art gallery business began using the term “stable”, as in “stable of artists”, to refer to the artists whom they choose to represent…but I was pleased to receive a phone call last night to welcome me out of this mid-winter cold and into the warmth of the stables of Gallery 1261 in Denver, CO.
I look forward to having this venue to expand our patron base and am honored to be in their fine company of artists such as, Scott Fraser, Daniel Sprick, Robert C. Jackson, Quang Ho, Kate Sammons, and Nancy Switzer just to name drop a few !
Now, as our first real nor’easter wails without… it’s back to the easel for me…