Well I bring you all of that and more with these two new works which are winging their way out west to Gallery 1261 in Denver Colorado. My garden friends are floating out there on whisps of thistles and gossiping among the sunflower petals with stories of color and light from the new studio.
The show opens soon… November 11, 2023 and runs through the beginning of December. Perfect for holiday viewing and brightening up these shortening days.
Sending you all manner of light and love from the warm and cozy autumn studio… me.
A grand good morning to all of you readers friends and patrons alike…
It dawns bright here in the studio with some cooler weather drifting in so we can throw open the windows and clear out the cobwebs. With the first cup of coffee firing up the neurons I’m heading out to the garden to find a shady spot to weed. Glory days.
It’s hard to be here and not there, on the island, ironing my show shirt and getting ready to see well loved faces at the show opening and a surprise wave of sadness washed over me last night. We are so grateful for the beloved gallery family who I know will be there for us to represent and to shine a light as they do for all their artists. if you are on the Vineyard and headed to the gallery please give them each a hug for us. They are good huggers.
This morning I’m going to wipe away those tears and go to the happy place of tending to the tenders outside. Time to get a jump on starting the fall crops. Maggie wants to start with the mountain of dirt that we’ve been slowly shoveling into the new kitchen beds. Sounds good to me. Then when the sun moves a bit we can settle in to clear the asparagus bed of all that creeping Charlie.
Herself is clearing off the porch so we can enjoy a fresh tomato sandwich for lunch. Our pal Maureen is coming with an armful of cheeses and while those two watch the tennis match Maggie and I may just spend the afternoon at the easel listening for the whisper of Muses.
Wherever these words and paintings find you I hope there is a bushel of light, a wheelbarrow full of laughter and teacup full of peace.
All of you who took the time to send me support and love in response to the roll out of this years’ Granary Gallery show…
It is not a throw aside gesture to say that it makes all the difference because to me it absolutely does. We won’t be able to attend the opening in person but from here in the late summer studio I can feel the hugs and see the smiling faces virtually via your likes and comments which goes such a long way towards affirmation and your kindness is contagious.
Maggie and I got some tomatoes gathered this morning and in this hottest part of the year the tall bushy green beans are apparently not as special a treat as her long gone sweet peas but our girl has bunnies to chase and a field of wild clover to roll in and we send you all a bucket of thank yous … may your teacups overflow with sweetness.
My Sweet Pea
This was all Maggie’s idea.
Originally the intent was to have this composition focus up close on my hands shelling those beautiful peas into a teacup.
I had the panel prepped and the frame ordered and it was the very last of the paintings for this years’ Granary Gallery show.
But when it came time to sketch it out I couldn’t quite get the positioning of the hands right just by drawing them in front of a mirror.
So I set things up in the new studio and called Herself over late one night to push the button on my camera.
She brought Maggie who upon seeing the pea pod came hurtling to devour the treat.
This has been Maggie’s first year in the garden and after a crazy hot spell of a start to the season when I feared the loss of all of the cool weather crops we had a glorious run with the peas.
Both snow and shelling peas took off and it became clear that Maggie LOVES peas. She would sit patiently next to the trellis waiting for me to catch up on our walks and reach over the fence to grab her a handful of pods.
Just melted this old gardeners’ heart.
Back in the late night studio photo shoot we managed to convince Maggie to lay quietly beside Pat as she snapped pics of my hands in different positions.
I sent them home when I climbed up to the loft office space to look at the photos and see if I could work from them. I needed one more take so back they came.
Something was amiss with the focusing on the camera and the extra fussing must have annoyed the pup because as I settled back onto my stool and tried to hold my hands extra still that little bundle of whiteness crept up and came over to my side and ever so gently she layed herself down just as you see her here
with one paw on my boot waiting patiently my sweet pea for her sweet pea.
Welcome to my new studio this is one corner of the library my dream library where all of the books and props and collections of treasures have finally gotten a place to play together.
It is a deeply meaningful space designed after the Trinity library in Dublin with ebony stained graduating shelves and gold leafed alphabet letters climbing next to tall fluted columns.
To sit in this space in an early morning light with the stove lit and beginning to warm surrounded by my familiars is dreaming my biggest dream.
To make something of an overture and by way of marking new adventures the Muses chose Moby Dick as the very first book to pull from the shelves.
Sitting in my captains chair tucked inside of this literary snug felt the very essence of being inside of a whaleship and I was every full measure of CS Lewis’ “Surprised by Joy” each morning as I read.
Here’s a peek behind the curtain at my Library Dreams sitting in my dream library which is sorta fun.
The generosity of the Morse family knows no edges and the quiet gesture of handing Herself this little purple vase is what I’m talking about…tender kindnesses
And when she filled it with water to place into it the daffodils which they told her it was ok to pick from their front yard and the water leaked out all over the counter…
it was that second of the purple vases which was offered to her that really spoke to their hearts.
The daffodils as theme was a gift of its own in the studio for this years’ Granary show and putting the three blooms which grew in our home yard into one of those purple vases was a perfect foil for Aunt Imy’s lilac teacup resting on one of Polly’s hand sewn handkerchiefs which she embroidered with violets.
But it was the muses I have to thank who stepped in to stop me just before I tried to give those flowers a drink.
The whispers of clover are my own tiny celebration of having finally moved out of the “heavy construction” phase of our rebuild and now every day a little bit more of what was the mud and straw strewn yard that surrounds our home and studio is growing lush and green with our new lawn of clover.
Another gift from my early spring wanderings this familiar peek behind the fishing shacks in Menemsha was brought into a different kind of focus which only a winter of island weather could provide.
I’ve taken hundreds of photos from this vantage point over the decades but in the three growing seasons of the year that bank across the water is a wall of green vines and scrub oak which all but obscures the old wooden stairways and hides most of the foundations and some of the porches.
On this day in late March there was the barest hint of warming sap beginning to run into the tips of the shrubbery and the capillaries of the tree branches a glowing harbinger of the promises of spring.
I wrote in the Coast Guards notes of the peaceful solitude that accompanied me on the walk around the harbor that day I was able to stand in this scalloped niche for an extended time of totally uninterrupted observation watching and listening to the light play with the reflections and the water lapping the mossy pilings the breeze whispering through the rigging and the ropes slackening then pulling taught over and over and over again in a rhythm as old as the sea itself.
One unexpected gift of being on the island of Martha’s Vineyard in March is the season of solitude.
While winter has snuggled the humans behind closed doors the verdant thickets of vegetation along stone walled roadways have fallen back to sleep throwing open an early spring curtain to reveal new and ever deepening glimpses into old and familiar views.
And with those newly opened views came the added blessing of exploring the island in deep silence and peace.
The contrast of the bustling tourist season with the quiet stillness of the winter was sublime.
Happening upon this Menemsha moment is the perfect example.
With Pat and Jane and Maggie safely tucked into their recliners I walked the sandy road down to the beach where the lifeguard chair was the sole onlooker back down the wooden dock where the only sound was the basin water lapping on the boats up and over Crick’s hill then out back of the Galley where the every single post and rooftop rail and piling had one seagull sitting or lying as if on their lunch breaks.
Full disclosure I cheated a bit here In the real world on that late March morning there was one other human to be seen I came upon him when I had drifted further out that dock just past the coast guard station as I was looking back across the water he was behind me coming ashore from a morning of scalloping I nodded he said it was a beautiful day and that was that except that here I turned him around.
When I started this painting it was all about the solitude and that peace and quiet with only the gulls standing guard but it is a working village and one lone fisherman enjoying the sun and the sea and a peaceful walk to work seemed to tell a better story.
“Chance favors the prepared mind.” John Fowles, The Magus
This is a throw back and a throw forward.
We spent most of the fall of 2018 on the island. The extended stay allowed for deep diving into painting subjects as well as the opportunity for serendipity to come out and play.
I wrote a bit about this in the Painter’s Notes for The Flock which was painted shortly after that fall visit. After years of chasing the right light to capture the iconic view of sheep grazing on the farm field overlooking Lucy Vincent Beach, chance favored this artiste with an almost biblical parting of the storm filled skies to open up shafts of dramatic autumn colored sunlight just as I was driving past the overlook.
It took my breath away and I quickly captured the moment with camera and sketchpad.
I had been making a daily loop at sunset circling up island roads in a random pattern watching and waiting. To be in the right place at the right time you have to keep showing up in the wrong times. A lot. In this case for decades. And you have to be open to taking chances.
So, after I had enough to be going on with for the sheep composition, I figured might as well finish the loop. I drove back to Beetlebung Corner and took a right onto Middle Road. I’d been studying those cows and trying to come upon them grazing closer to the road to get a better look and to give some foreground to the vast composition of field and sliver of sea. In the 6 minutes of light remaining from that epic sheep view, the cows who were grazing in that same light and only a few fields away were smack up against the wooden fence as I drove by. I zipped right back around at the gas pump and caught them looking.
But here’s where the Muses like to tease. Back home in the studio there was a choice of which painting to start off with and I decided to go big and all out with the sheep. I hoisted an 8 foot panel up on the easel and set out to try and portray the grandeur of the light on the vista and the grace in the peacefulness of the flock. It was a marathon and took up the remaining time I had to prepare for that year’s show so the idea of a twin companion painting of the herd was put on what I thought would be a brief hold.
Until it got thrown forward 5 years to today. Painting now in my new studio, the Muses said wait a minute…remember those cows ? If, as they were originally meant to do, the flock and the herd ever got to hang side by side you could stand in the middle and be that glorious sunlight.
A peaceful gentle cove that curves around a back corner of Menemsha Pond.
A favorite lunch spot for island tradesmen and when we pulled up in late March there was a small van in the little lot with its window rolled down and the glimpse of an old workshirt sleeved arm resting on the sill holding half of a homemade sandwich.
Maggie needed to stretch her legs and I saw an interesting painting prospect up ahead curious about all those bobbing bubbles floating so we left the ladies in the car to keep chatting grabbed the camera and took to the beach.
One of my hearts’ most favorite things to do is spend time with Jane. Two of my hearts’ most cherished things to do is to listen to Pat and Jane solve all of the world’s problems and to laugh together.
Couple one and two with roaming the island exploring painting ideas on a beach walk with Maggie while listening to Pat and Jane laugh in the distance…yep it’s priceless and in this case also hilarious.
I had left Jane in the front passengers’ seat Pat buckled in directly behind her with both of their windows open right next to, but a bit behind, the open window of the van and trust me when these ladies get to talking and laughing they can be heard all the way down at the end of the beach.
I’m still wondering what that tradesman took home from their conversation.
I love the stillness of these early spring moorings lapped gently by the swells and soaking up the sun while they wait patiently for their families to return…
I’m being told by voices shouting just over my shoulder that this one is all down to THE MUSES.
Well ok then.
Returning from our magical early spring visit to the island awash in the memories of fields of daffodils it was fun to find a few of our own blooming in the studio garden.
This is a year of transition for the gardens after a year of construction and heavy machinery ripping it all up and sending well established roots hither and thither.
I was expecting indeed looking forward to starting all over again with a blank verdant slate.
But Mother Nature finds a way and we found a few stalwart blooms fighting through the mud and straw and were greeted at home with a tiny bunch of daffodils for the picking.
What’s that ? Oh yes, sorry, THE MUSES !!!
Anyhow… I was sitting in the new studio library going through old sketch books for new ideas when I came upon some sketches done years ago. I had called Herself over to the yard to help with a still life by holding a teacup over a watering can which was supposed to be full of … yep daffodils.
It had been a last minute idea and there were only two blooms left at the time but as an artist we can fake these kind of things think pre-CGI super powers.
Alas, not all ideas for paintings make the first cut and as this one did get left to percolate in old sketchbooks until wait for it…
THE MUSES !!!!!!!!
Since a theme was beginning to blossom for this year’s Granary Gallery show it seemed fitting or rather I was told in no uncertain terms that it was time to resurrect this composition and bring it to the easel.
It was totally my idea to put the watering can on the bluff. TOTALLY.
But yes, I’m always grateful for those voices over my shoulder. Ok yes…