Sometimes a painting comes into creative form and much later long after the brushes have been put down and the oil painted strokes have dried after it has been layed on the kitchen table to be framed and made its way onto a gallery wall I look back at the image captured before it left the studio and its truest meaning is revealed.
So it is that this morning in the only corner of my studio that is still functioning as a working space I sit down to begin another day this one set aside to take advantage of the grey skies and foggy still air by continuing the obligatory inventory of every possession and talisman that our log cabin held for us and looked again…and anew at this shirt drifting beside the ocean.
And here’s what I know now to be true.
We have left something in our wake here on this planet.
Herself and myself have been and are loved.
To be reminded of that in our dotage has been a gift.
From all of the corners we have walked from way back in time and as recently as the wee hours of this deep morning you dear people have reached out to lift us up.
We sensed and now can see who amongst us will and have most literally handed us the shirts off of their backs.
Every single word of kindness gesture of support offer to help has made a difference to us and for us.
Over the progression of time the many paintings I’ve done of this horizon now feel like both harbingers and sign posts left along our road this one will serve to remind us of you.
With our deepest gratitude We thank you.
And I’ll leave you with the gift of this haiku from the 17th century Japanese poet Masahide that was sent to me this morning from D.
since my house burned down, I now own a better view of the rising moon
Yesterday we spent a glorious day at the lake celebrating the life of our dear pal Paul. He’s already shown us the power of his newly minted status as Angel and so so many people came together as the village HE created. There were some on the ground angels who helped to make it magical, full of fine food and safe for us all. You know who you are and have received hugs of gratitude from our hearts so hurray for the helpers.
Today Matt has dedicated to getting his hands back on his garden and was up with the dawning sun.
I woke here in the studio to that same dawn and hit the ground running.
I’ll get out there to my own garden soon.
Meanwhile Ginger is on patrol and reports severe clear skies…
And the pumpkins have lined themselves up in a nice neat, well not so neat, row.
PRINT ORDER UPDATE
For all of you who have so generously ordered prints on my website…thank you.
And here’s a quick link for those who would like to look around on the print page to place an order…
The new printer which I had finally and successfully installed ;ast week decided to give in to the bad juju floating around this corner of the world and …well… it died.
NO WORRIES though. Epson jumped right on it and I now have installed its brand spanking even newer printer.
I’m about to put it through its calibration paces and test it out with the first of those print orders.
Cross your USB cables.
I’ll be shipping them out ASAP.
I will be chronicling this next stage in my creative life here on the blog…
Tomorrow we begin Step 1 – finish the GREAT SORTING of all of our possessions that were lost in the flood. In a Pod In a truck In a garage on two porches and in two sheds
We will make two piles.
One goes to a local charity which helps distribute clothes/food/and household goods to hardworking people in need.
All the rest, which will be about 2% of the lot, will be integrated into our temporary housing.
I’ve got the perfect helper coming.
We’ll blow through that stage in no time.
Stay tuned and if this glorious weather is hovering over you too…ENJOY !!!!
Nanci Griffith is singing “Everything is coming up roses” in my ear.
Herself is singing to her own beats in the studio kitchen.
The sun outside this window is shining down from a severe clear blue sky.
And that is everything I need to know of love right now.
I’m writing to you today to leave a breadcrumb…and to ask for your help.
As so many many others, we were caught in the path of the destruction from Hurricane Ida. She blew through our corner of the planet on the 1st of September and flooded us out of house and home.
Pat and I are both safe.
On bowed knees we are humbled in gratitude for everyone of the rescuers, local fire and hazmat responders, neighbors and friends who have joined the unbelievable network of helpers who have reached out to lift us up.
The time stamp on this photo reads 5:44 on September 1st. It is taken from the creekside log cabin porch.
This was the point that Pat and I knew we were in trouble.
Three hours later that creek had surrounded the cabin and we had moved uphill to my studio next door where the water was creeping up the driveway. The view of the cabin from the studio driveway.
At 8:55 the street was full of flashing red lights.
Pat and I could only watch as an extremely hazardous river rescue was underway by 9:10 to help neighbors upstream who were stranded on their roof.
By 10:47 when this picture was taken this is where the water was beginning to crest.
The next morning, after the waters had receded enough for me to enter the cabin, the overwhelming fuel fumes turned me right back around and I dialed those dreaded numbers 911.
From that point the now fully understood word of the month, Mitigation, has been driving our bus.
The 100 year old bones of this old gal kept her upright. But the devastation within and without have left her uninhabitable.
A few days ago I posted this painting. I am very glad now that I have her depicted in some measure of the glory days.
I just went over there today to take a photo of that same spot.
Still not looking too shabby for the disaster but the DEP and my new friends the mitigators tell me that most of the wood has to go. And except for the stones in the fireplace it is all wood. These pieces of what was Pat’s piano is all that is left.
But we are lucky humans.
The studio was not affected and is out of the designated flood zone.
We have been able to carve out some living space between the easel and the brushes and have a safe and solid roof over our heads. We were able to save most of my handmade chairs from the cabin and most of the paintings from my private collection which were brightening our cabin life over the thirty two years we have called it home. Everything else is in a big red dumpster plus five save boxes in one of those pod thingys.
The mitigation crews will soon have gone as far as they can go. We are left with the balance of the cleanup, sorting and tossing, the mountains of paperwork that insurance companies require, the fascinatingly steep learning curve of figuring out how to navigate hoards of people who are asking me for numbers and figures and receipts and photographs for their reports.
The Muses have stopped their weeping and moaning. As Polly would say, I told them to shake themselves together !
They’ve begun to look at options for going forward. And we are reviewing their suggestions. A bit of building may be able to happen here on the studio property to get us some much needed extra space.
Our dearest friends have rallied and are offering daily support to …god help me… MITIGATE the urgent crisis and triage the worst of those to keep us alive and safe. From that point of security we are beginning to look toward the horizon and can see a significant financial challenge.
Our insurances will cover what they will but it will be minimal. This IS the …god help me again…RAINY DAY we have been trying to save for.
It is time for me to take stock of what I have put out into the world by way of working full time as an artist and let you dear friends and patrons know that this is a particularly pointed moment when your support can mean literally all the world to us.
All three of the galleries that have so loyally represented my work over the years are fully up to speed and are eagerly open to help. I’m going to list here all of the work that is available on their walls. There are particularly good opportunities for serious collectors, you know who you are, to make an even more profound impact on the career of an artist.
I am going to, for the first time in my career, open up some paintings from my private collection.
We have restocked the studio with ink and paper and would be thrilled to send you some prints for your collection and holiday season giving.
I would ask you to please share this as wide and far as Bob Marley’s Three little birds can fly.
So I’m going to take a deep breath and start that list. You’ll know what to do.
AVAILABLE GALLERY ORIGINAL PAINTINGS –
Gallery 1261 –
Let’s head out west and say hello to Gallery 1261.
Gallery 1261 in Denver Colorado was established in 2004 and is located in the Golden Triangle Museum District, two blocks away from the Denver Art Museum. This space is shared with Abend Gallery. The gallery is dedicated to presenting excellent work that reflects the artists’ most creative side, done without the constraints of marketability in mind.
Christine and Dave are eager to show you the 2 new paintings of mine that are currently featured in their Small Works Show. Here’s a peek…
Onion Moon 12 x 13 $3900The first snow pea never makes it out of the garden 14 x 12 $3900
They have some golden oldies out there as well which my tickle your fancy…
Camera Obscura 24 x 36 $19,500French Breakfast Radis 20 x 24 $6400
King’s Highway Deep 18 x 24 $7800
One for Solitude 30 x 23 $11,500Tied Up 32 x 48 $38,800
Sugarman Peterson Gallery –
A short drive south and Santa Fe is in your headlights.
The Sugarman Peterson Gallery is on the historic West Palace Avenue and owners Michael and Christie Sugarman are artists themselves who have created a wonderful space to exhibit their own fine jewelry and the sculpture and paintings by artists from across the planet.
Michael has shepherded me over the years by especially encouraging my figurative work. He currently has some of my most recent work in that genre as well as some hefty classics.
Arthur’s Light 22 x 34 $32,000Night Philosopher 24 x 30 $18,500There are no secrets we keep from our shoes 16 x 20 $9950Master Violet Ray #11 24 x 29 $18, 250Bucket List 42 x 48 $39,000
THE GRANARY GALLERY –
It all started for me when Chris Morse said, “I’ll take everything that is left over after your solo Vernissage”.
My dream of being a full time working artist was born.
The Granary Gallery has become the mothership for representing my artwork and the staff there my lodestars.
REGIONAL ART WITH AN ECLECTIC TWIST – this images caption only begins to reveal what their island gallery and professional art dealing staff have to show you.
You, my readers, are well versed in the yearly line ups of work that I have sent them and the most recent blog posts on this website are loaded with links and images that will point you to what works they currently have on their walls.
This year’s show has been selling well so far so I’m going to throw up some easy links and highlights for a few of the original paintings that are still available and waiting to ship out to new homes.
Fisher of Men 54 x 42 $64,500The Flock Tread 48 x 92 $185,000The Changing Room 24 x 20 $19,800Morning Menemsha 48 x 92 Price Upon RequestThe Shirt Off My Back 24 x 36 $32,000
Chris, David, Wendy, Adam and the entire staff have got our backs and are the best clearing house for valuation of paintings across my entire career. Well that does sound a bit end of the line and I am here to assure you that I will scramble and claw my way back to the easel and get those brushes flying as soon as I possibly can. Believe me the Muses have some important things to say about what we are going through, have come to know and have witnessed over the last few days. Our life has been shifted hard and to the left and then some.
The Granary also carries a selection of fine art prints of my paintings that are available through their website. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to them there at The Granary Gallery.
HN STUDIO PRINTS
Here in the studio I am able to access the office and we are up and running for print orders. Visit my website link to HN Studio Prints .
The only criteria I have is that I will not make a print of any painting until the original has sold. I am opening up the availability of most of the sold images and those can be viewed by scrolling around the portfolio section. If you see something you’re interested in owning as a print and is has been sold please send me an email inquiry at hnartisan@comcast.net .
For future reference our landline phone at the cabin has been discontinued and as soon as I have a replacement for that I’ll let you know. But email is always the best way to get a hold of us here in the studio.
And now from the
ARTIST’S PRIVATE COLLECTION
These pieces have been held back for mostly personal and professional reasons. I was counseled early on to hold back some milestone paintings. To keep ones that had resounding importance that marked passages along the way, or had singular significance.
Most artists I know have pretty healthy egos about the significance of their work. We have to put that coat on to go out and face the demons while the Muses tease. I’ve been fortunate enough to have some success along the way at keeping the brushes flying and have said goodbye to a great many pieces that I’d like to have in this collection today. Thank you to all of those who have rendered that vital support along the way by putting red dots up on those gallery tags. I am here and writing this because of you.
And I hope to keep a smaller group of new works that can replenish the Artist’s Collection going forward for our future.
Right now, if you are still reading this, it’s hopefully clear that our future depends on turning some of these canvases into wine. Well not literally of course. Although the chardonnay at the end of these brutal and long days is an extremely welcomed aide de soul.
I will be happy to answer questions about these and all of my paintings. A great starting point for those interested in original works is to search them here on my site. The new upgrades I made over the winter are proving to have been worth the time now. There are links to every image feeding you information and Painter’s Notes to add context and more layers of meaning. Please enjoy playing around there.
In chronological order, from the Artist’s Private Collection – the following original oil paintings are now available through the Studio Gallery
Sister Fisher and the Holy Ghost 19 x 24 $10,500
The Unexpected Call 28 x 19 $12000
Queen of Shovels 21 x 32 $14,500
Santa Fe Bowl 19 x 32 $14,500
Lamplighter 42 x 42 $38,000
Beecharmer 38 x 60 $57,000
Manchester Gothic 24 x 30 $14,000Morning Studio 30 x 24 $14,000
In closing I would like to take you back the end of one of the hardest days so far.
And the photo I put up earlier of that empty room with what is left of Pat’s piano.
In the heat of a sultry late summer Pennsylvania day, while Pat worked the phones, I with a mask that I ended up wringing out half a cup of my expiration moisture from, twice, along with our brilliant OCD driven friend Susan working step for every one of my steps, we had hustled to stay ahead of the hired mitigators to try and save a couple bucks by literally tossing outside what we could of dishes and contaminated but savable possessions so we didn’t have to pay them to photograph and catalogue every single surface of every single item…before they threw it in the dumpster. Yes.
Cody, who doubles as one of those intrepid volunteer firefighters who showed up for that river rescue, had been doing his hard work of mitigation for the company we hired along with Bobby, Anthony and others for three long days in the other half of the log cabin.
Susan and I heard music.
The guys were gathered in the dining room and Cody was sitting and playing the piano.
They teased him, the church organist, to give us a song.
I had asked the guys who were told to break apart the piano to get it out, to try and please try and save me at least one key.
The following video is Cody’s offering. He took us to church.
I am taking the risk of posting it here before I have a chance to ask for his approval. I’ll take it down immediately if he says so. But I want it to live on somewhere for his new baby son Everett.
This young brave strong kind compassionate young man gave a piece of his heart to help us above and beyond the job he was being paid to do. They all did. I will never forget him and the others who have walked with us on this journey.
So this painting is one of those collaborations in which I play only a very minor part. I really had nothing to do with this one.
Early on in the pandemic Pat and Jane made a pact.
They would call each other to check in almost daily for support during the isolation of lockdown her on her island and Pat in her log cabin and to provide at least one good belly laugh between them.
That conversation has been ongoing ever since and it is honestly the highlight of my day to come home and hear the latest story from Jane.
I secretly think they each go out of their way to make stuff up just for the chuckles but I’m here to witness that we, none of us, would have made it through without that connection.
So Jane has this crow which she feeds.
She reports that it visits each day and goes so far as to follow her on her daily walks through downtown Menemsha and apparently gives her what for if she forgets to offer up the daily snack.
One day Pat comes over to the studio in tears… well actually every day Pat comes over in tears which are mostly from laughing at Jane’s stories.
Apparently Jane had set out a bag with some sort of crumbs for her crow.
It was a stormy day and the wind or possibly the crow had blown the bag onto her roof.
Pat sternly warned Jane not to jolly well climb up there after it. This is something you must remember as her friends know to warn Jane not to do.
Then they got to giggling about how Pat suggested Jane get a tiny little umbrella for the storm soaked crow and they both lost it which is why the tearful laughter in the studio and as ever those cheeky Muses were in the corner listening.
It was the work of a moment to find a teacup from Oversouth and the delicate whalebone handled parasol had been perched on the top of a picture frame hanging on the wall of the log cabin dining room ever since Mr. Morse handed it to me on our last island goodbye.
I stripped away all but the tidal current from the basin and then just stood aside.
That first mitten was pale yellow and big enough for a yeti.
Its matching sister mitten was a snug fit for my Tiny Tears doll.
I was 9 and the thread of that fuzzy yellow yarn has now twisted and woven its way through a lifelong love of all things fiber.
Now I am knitting my way through the sixties and the pleasure and peace of picking up those tiny needles and warming my arthritic fingers with that soft and silky handspun wool is all about keeping those hands warm and busy while my mind wanders and wonders.
The long arc of that knitted path reveals an automatic and deeply authentic connection back to that child who could never ever have imagined what adventures her clumsy young hands would have before her.
This is a composition really just the hint of an idea which I’ve had in the working sketchbooks for many years.
I dabbled in bookbinding for awhile as one does and so the props were readily at hand.
And the model or poseur as it were was also to hand or at least passing through.
Peter uses our house as a stop on his workshop teaching routes.
It is always the highlight of my year when we get a chance to as Herself likes to quip spit scratch and tell lies.
I never lie and I’ve never seen Peter spit but there you are. We have a blast.
On one of those return trips he arrived very late after filming episodes of The Woodwright’s Shop with Roy Underhill. I’ve got no shame dropping his name here because it’s a wicked cool thing that Peter and I both watched his PBS show even before we were aspiring woodworkers and I’m so thrilled that they are now friends and fellow scholars.
But I bring it up here to place emphasis on the very late and very tired northbound traveler.
Peter was exhausted. But he was also planning to book outta here before the wrens’ started singing the next morning and I had a little request.
Please, after spending hours and hours in front of a camera would you please… sit in front of a camera and pose for me.
With no time for an elaborate set up I plunked him in the office at the round cherry table and brought down my binding frame.
Couple of practices with the gesture and click, I had my reference.
I pushed my luck and had him do a twofer and model for a second composition idea which became the core of Master Carver’s Tea.
Since the orchestration for that comp was further along I put it at the head of the line and the Bookbinder sat…in the books.
Then we went to Ireland.
At the end of our tour we visited the Rock of Cashel. In the adjoining Hall of Vicars I found a collection of Irish furniture that resembles the era of 17th century carvings which Peter specializes in but what I also saw was a possible reference for the table I have been pondering for yet another painting which is even deeper in the wings of my sketchbooks. I took photos for Peter’s archives and for my own.
Now we creep forward to this past winter when I was eager to sink my chops into something completely different and challenging.
I dug back and found the initial sketches for the bookbinder remembered the table and carvings and thought the Irish antiquities could just be grand.
What you see before you is the culmination of decades of rumination and a frisson of serendipity.
I waited all this time for that wren to wake up and sing she did.
My Granary Gallery Show is about to be revealed. The show opening is Sunday August 15th.
And while Herself and I will be continuing our Pandemic Protocol here in the studio…
The paintings have arrived safely on the island.
The gallery staff has gone out of their way to insure safety and protection for the best possible patron experience.
There will not be a typical show gala reception this year. But they are OPEN for business and so are we.
So here we go…
The first painting to share with you is the very first one I did for the show…I hope you enjoy and stay frosty out there !!!
Vituoso
There is a pause in every year here in the studio in between those intense months of lifting tiny brushes at the easel after the paintings have flown to their new homes
When I catch up on overlooked chores and bring the unfinished mystery novel out to the sky chair only to end up watching the catbirds rearranging their whispering garden twigs
or…if it is winter
When I sit with a cup of tea in the patron lounge chair and a newly gathered stack of well worn books and visit with my old master friends
An interval when during these pauses I let the creative energies drift enjoying and listening to a different rhythm…
when suddenly the Muses go SNAP !
I have come to know and trust as my artiste self “matures” that it’s only a matter of time before there will soon be a pile of offerings before me
Feathers and teacups shards of color shiny bits and bobs a jigsaw puzzle of treasures which have caught their fancy
Dumped now on the table to test the mettle and tease the wanderer back once again sparking that sizzle tempting me out of that stasis of revelry
Calling me back to the work which has come to define the essence the very core of all that is meaningful
