We have returned safely to the studio, and the GG2015 show moves into the exhibition stage. Every two weeks, during the summer, a new show opens and the granary elves play musical paintings and shift the artwork to make way for the new works. I took some photos, after the crowds dispersed, so you can see what a masterful job the gallery staff does in hanging the show.
It has been a terrific start to the summer show season, with a satisfying double handful of red dots filling the walls. We return home to a triple digit heat wave and one very happy puppy to greet us. I had promised myself a week of uninterrupted gardening days, but with this weather I’ve turned up the A/C and brought out the quilting bag. The creative soul needs some rest but the hands…never.
Stay frosty out there and thank you all for your support.
Yes, I am painting.
Most of the hours of most of the days.
But the apprentice has lately been insisting on beauty breaks…
And, after the winter of discontent that we all shivered through, I am taking deep breaths of every single blooming flower in my garden..
My beloved Beach Rose and irises and even the daisy that always reminds me of J O’H
and, with a cart full of color, and a pair of sturdy gloves
I am taking full advantage of every single space between the brushes
to get outside and work in the dirt.
Herself chuckles and grins as she reminds me of the day,
sometime in mid-January,
when I hung my winter weary head
and swore I was not going to do ANY gardening this year.
Certainly no new plants, and definitely not the heavy lifting of the vegetable beds.
No, I was going to keep that head down low and focus focus focus on the paintings.
And right up until about March I was right on track with that dark pledge and doing fine.
Then some plague germs bullied their way into the studio and I spent the next few months crawling out of a very deep hole of un-health. (Spell check didn’t like that last hyphen and neither did I.) Which has thrown some curve balls of perspective at me.
BUT… the veil has lifted.
(Insert a choir of angels here please)
and all verdant bets are off…
Life is so damned short and…
you simply can’t keep a gardener’s soul from a wheelbarrow filled with marigolds…
And then there are those newly revised beds that I dreamed of through the wintery gauze of tissues…
and the annex to the asparagus bed that wants to try growing some beans this year…
Everywhere I look there are things growing…
And chairs that call to sit a spell…
or swing…
And so yes, I am painting, but I am also living large in the tiny corner of the planet that we are taming. And, when the brushes begin to whine, I settle back into my chair at the easel with a tiny token of the garden wonders to temp the muses…
May your paths be filled with clover
and strewn with beach rose petals…
now go out there and grab a trowel.
…Don’t get me wrong, I love a blizzard. EVERYTHING ABOUT A BLIZZARD, from the early rumblings of “something to keep an eye on” on the weather sites, to the empty aisles in the grocery stores…who needs milk and bread, we hit the chocolate and cheese sections, to making sure there is a shovel of some kind just outside each door, firewood on the back porch, emergency candles, rubber ducks floating in the water-filled bathtub…
then the countdown as NOAA tweaks and teases the snow totals out of the more reliable European model…like that.
Anticipation builds and nothing beats those few extra flakes that trump the forecasted foot or two. Yes, I love a blizzard.
But the last time we got one of those was when Finnegan was a little pup. And the winters in between have been dismally short on temps cold enough to produce the white stuff.
But……this winter is shaping up and laying down…in short controlled bursts… and I have been simply reeking of positivity lately, so I am happily learning to also LOVE these back to back to back little snowfalls.
Turns out 2-6 inches of snow offer almost all of the same gifts of beauty and soul warming wooly slippered comfort…without the sore shoveling muscles from moving those big mountains and drifts… and the cabin fever that hovers over Herself when she can’t get out of the lane.
The hearty Bernese Mt. Dog Finnegan has had weekly doses of heaven and has begun to take for granted that her first few steps each morning will be giant leaps into deliciously soft cold snow. I have rarely seen her this happy.
Herself has made several batches of her favorite snowstorm apple bake and now has the recipe…down Pat.
Sue and Zola helped to re-stock the firewood and the log cabin has been a toasty refuge for this tired artiste at the end of long luxurious days at the easel.
And, indeed, those long, glorious days at the easel have been pure bliss.
I was going to wax on about how the muses tend to find artists when the winter dampens the bridge to the outside world. How, in this world of bells and whistles which emanate from our pockets and conspire to shatter those hard fought for slivers of emptiness, we struggle to find mental rest stops.
And how magical it is,
that when just a couple inches of snow falls,
in the studio yard,
being forced to sit in stillness,
reshuffles the creative deck.
There ya go,
now I’m headed back to work.
Stay frosty out there…
This morning Finn and I took advantage of a warm spell and walked around the yard filling the bird feeders. I had been heeding the woodland warnings not to put out seed until the bears are hibernating. I have never, repeat never, seen a bear in my yard… but lately, I seem to be leaning into the winds of caution.
At the end of the path, just before the lilac bushes, we found this feather…
It’s about 6 inches long and the tips on the right side are dipped in a burnt sienna which the sun wants to make red. The top, which is at the bottom of this photo, is a mottled grey. I first thought of a red tailed hawk. Possibly a big owl ? But my heart wants it to be a Hawk.
Peter will know, or possibly his friend Marie, and most probably several others of you out there…so I decided to toss it to the cyber winds for some helpful answer.
It’s so beautiful, on it’s own, against the creamy ivory of my journal, and I am grateful to the muses for this gift of Advent.
After removing a finished painting from the easel the other day I found this note hiding next to a well splattered photo of Herself…
Which made me take a closer look at what else is taped to my easel…
This one below is a bit obscured from a decade of wiping my brushes…”There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” from Leonard Cohen
And I love the extra notes reminding me to plant garlic in November and to do a painting of my spoon carving. Both of which I did.
And two favorite pics of our sweet second Berners, Gulliver, enjoying two spots she used to love on the Vineyard. She’s there at her post, by my side, watching me every day.
Just some of the things that inspire me… so what’s on your easel ?
Celebrating the season of long winter nights and welcomingly fragrant evergreens, a grateful return to my seat at the easel, the twinkling of colored lights, newsletters from loved ones, the trail of cookie crumbs from studio to cabin…and back, and the sparkle in the eyes of our sweet lapdog Finnegan who is thoroughly enjoying the frosty morning walks with her buddy.
Wishing you all manner of love and laughter and light…
I almost forgot to post today’s painting in the midst of all this packing. We have one more day to get all this together and I’m suddenly WAY behind schedule…
So, without further ado here ya go…
#15 – The Canoe Trip 24 x 36
Another look at James Pond
but this time from Gulliver’s perspective.
She was a wonderful dog.
Shy around some, she chose her humans carefully.
As Saren will tell you,
if you were lucky enough to have Gulliver trust you,
it was a rare gift of grace.
And Gully was loyal.
Beyond measure or equal.
So that when her best buddy Pat,
and pack members Jon and Tonya,
decided to take a sunset canoe trip on the pond…
those loyalties were surely tested.
Paddle alongside them to make sure their passage was safe…
or stay on shore guarding me,
the one who is mostly unsure of the water
and boats
and a reluctant swimmer.
You can see
that she chose to wait and watch
and I will forever be grateful to her
for that gift.
She watches over us all now and is ringing her chimes as I write.
