Tag: Granary Gallery show

Tea for the Tillerman

Posted on by heather

20 x 16 Oil on Panel

“Bring tea for the Tillerman
Steak for the sun
Wine for the women who made the rain come
Seagulls sing your hearts away
‘Cause while the sinners sin, the children play

Oh Lord how they play and play
For that happy day, for that happy day”
Cat Stevens (Yusif Islam)

The painting came through way before the title.

When months ago, as the sketchbook notes remember for me, I was reaching about in the studio for my touchstones,
my eye settled across the room and over to the corner cupboard, home for many a maritime relic.

This wheel, this tiny helm, came to me by way of Jane Slater’s Menemsha shop many years back now.
It would barely fit on a fish platter and it is deceptively heavy.
The turned wooden handles earned their scars long before coming to rest in my studio.
Rugged stalwart hardworking circles within circles.

I set it next to the easel and waited for the Muses to speak.
But while they argued the tension itself was what I was listening to…

Tethering rope pulling hard to starboard
onward onward ever onward.

Delicate teacup poised with the confident compassion of
Slowdown, holdfast…we’ve got this.

But of course it isn’t about the wheel, or the teacup or the rope.
It’s about where the boat takes us.

And that depends
on the Tillerman.

Basin Breezes

Posted on by heather

48 x 32 Oil on Panel

On tenterhooks and steadfast stillness
Nature hovers ever on the watch

Leviathans of the fishing fleet
Powerful floating machines of endurance

Scarified from weather tossed midnight trawls
Battles with beast and swell

Hatches battened and ropes cinched
Hauling, drifting and hauling again

And when the sea is done with them
And they are tied in to safe harbor

The rigging allowed to rest
The sailors lubbering homeward

In between the rhythmic lapping
dock to boat
saltwater
hull
saltwater
hull

There is a space
for quiet reclamation

And Nature
always
always
finds a way.


Tendrils

Posted on by heather

24 x 20 Oil on Panel

This was Maggie’s favorite painting.
If you know, you know.

Pea season was outstanding this year.
A long slow spring with plenty of rain.

I want to take you behind the scenes a bit.
Out with me into that spring garden…

You can see what sort of jungle we were playing in…
This was the snow pea tower which was on the cusp of its harvest.

Across the walkway were the bush peas which you will recognize as the backdrop for this painting.

Both Maggie and Herself were insistent that I NOT spend the entire year trying to paint EVERY…SINGLE…PEA.

The Muses fought them off…at first.

Even with the heavily selective editing
which was designed to create a lacework screen to reveal the ocean beyond
it took me weeks and weeks and weeks to render pod and leaf as honestly as I grew them.

The tendrils painted themselves.

Delivery Day

Posted on by heather

A quick shout out to our pal Adam, aka The Bitz, who was on delivery duty today.

Here in the studio this is the moment when the paintings which I have been working on for a year are wrapped and ready to be hauled up to the island of Martha’s Vineyard for the Granary Gallery 2025 show.

Whew !

It sure feels terrific to have arrived at official old lady status where we hand this job off to the most capable and friendly and strong arms of our sturdy support staff.

Off they go, Bitz and the Art Van, to board a boat and ply the seas.

Great thanks to Adam and the Gallery !!! and now it’s back to writing Painter’s Notes in this empty studio.

Deviled Eggs

Posted on by heather

24 x 18 Oil on Panel

Ahhh
the devil you know.

In this case
once again
the dastardly dr. morse.

It’s not his fault really.
He absolutely cringes at clowns
and dolls.

But what do you expect the Muses to do
when they open a box,
hand delivered from gallery to studio,
(thank you Wendy and John)
penned atop with the bold and provocative signature…
For Heather, love Chris.

It took a few months for this particular iteration of a composition to formulate,
and for the moth infestation to be captured… and not released,
before the Muses
with a clever assist from Herself,
who put the “devil” in the mix,
were able to tie teacozy
to eggshells
which led to the ceramic eggplate from Ebay
and then to the supporting cast of mustard and scorpion sauce
both of which followed along like a gamboling spring lamb.

Once assembled
it was the work of a moment to see
that the books
which I had randomly grabbed
off of the topmost library shelf

were more than just another whim of the Muses…
“The Way of All Flesh” indeed…
and rather,
paraphrasing as Emily Dickinson wrote,
“All I need of hell”.

Bible Black

Posted on by heather

18 x 24 Oil on Panel

The crisping of early winter mornings
forms wispy tendrils
of delicate steam
which float above the teacup
sitting on a wooden box
to the left of my reading chair
in the snug of the studio library.

It is often a place
and a time of year
where and when
I go a little deeper
and darker
under the sway
of Under Milk Wood.

Last November
while walking those Welsh worn cobblestones
I had two companions.

On my shoulder to the left
were the well thumbed pages
of Dame Hillary Mantel’s Cromwell saga
and leaning just there on the bones of the right
Franny Moyles’ weighty tome of a biography
of Hans Holbein, the younger…
of course.

Magnificent chroniclers of juicy details
all three authors taken as one
provided a playground for this pondering artiste
while the Muses plucked their gossiping lute strings
stirred up lessons from the lives of the great poisoners
and ground pestles of earthy cadmium fire and indigo mystery.

Over my leftmost shoulder
just beyond the peat bog stained shelving
its Trinity alphabet leafed in gold
hiding a scintillating glint
winking from atop the leaning pole of mace
tucked there into the darkly columned corner…

just there
gesturing away from all that history
toward the promise of
of a canvas garden coat
draped over the rim
of the sour cherry scarred bucket
reflecting the raking
of the earliest morning light
then flinging us out and beyond
to the white stone guards
of the churning ocean horizon…

stood that stalwart maid of the chamber
Her-story
ivory aproned
and bible black.

Touchstones

Posted on by heather

24 x 28 Oil on Panel

Touchstones …
” : a test or criterion for determining the quality or genuineness of a thing ”
(merriam webster dictionary)

From my sketchbook,

     7 October 2024

      heavy fog and dew
7am with some color in the foliage
the hickories are this weeks’ show stoppers
but the edges of everything are become brittle.

          Talismen – Touchstone
groping for guidance – for reassurance
chased by fear popping up around unexpected corners and in between dreams which warp relentlessly
from problem solving and revisiting childhood houses into nightmares battling with mutating monsters
all of whom start out as benevolent strangers.

          In the thick and soul clenching morning blanket of fog I reach for my talimans
the objects which I have within reach in every corner of this studio
imbued with meaning only I can treasure
afraid they may lose some of their power if revealed
or that I will in the telling.

          Organic – dynamic – keepers of the story
do I dare let them tell their own.

15 Nov

     This feels right – and strong
and deeply authentic
when in doubt – go home

     Meeting the Muses where they are
and leaning in

Perfect November day
cloud cover
newly bared branches

OK now
a better approach
light and moonlit

TALISWOMEN
TALISWOMAN
TALISMAN

Painter’s Notes Post Scriptum –

Unable to land on the best use of the “working title” of Talismen/women ? The objects surrounding and influencing the creative sphere are contributions from every corner and gender along the path. So, I referred back to these original sketchbook notations for some clarity and it would seem that the Muses had worked that out from the very start…Touchstones.

The little quotation taped to the bookshelf was attributed to Leonardo DaVinci as the last words he wrote, “perche la minestra de fredda”…loosely interpreted as, “Whatever, the soup is getting cold.”

Granary Gallery 2025 Show

Posted on by heather

Sprinting like Jorge Mateo after a sac fly from Rutch, flying around third and losing my helmet on the way towards home base…
I am chugging my way into the home stretch…
and running out of time.
So this year I will offer the New Painting “Rollout” into 4 groups of threes.

The first of these present three “studio” paintings.
Qualified as thus because they capture, in still life, glimpses behind the scenes of the new, now very much a hard scrabble working, studio.

I’ll give them each a blog post all their own so you can absorb the Painter’s Notes, take a walk in the garden and brew a fresh cup of tea in between.

Enjoy, Heather