My father is in a coma after brain surgery to relieve a subdural hematoma sustained in a fall. There are so many layers to this but the way my family has come together is nothing short of miraculous. My brothers and step sister and brother have gently and immediately fallen into a strong and loving support system. Coupled with the dear friends my father has in Naples and a caring and supportive church family he has down there…my Dad has a winning team behind him.
The studio lights will be dark for the foreseeable future but my trusty apprentice will be guarding the paintings that are piling up for the summer shows.
One of the best parts of having a gallery represent an artist’s work is the unexpected connections that the paintings can make with people you have never met. The Granary Gallery (scroll down to the bottom of this linked page to view a video of a summer art opening) on Martha’s Vineyard is in an old red barn in the center of the island and, with it’s unique low keyed old corner store gathering place kind of feel, it is a year round destination for everyone from tourists to school children. Whether you’re an art lover or just along for the ride there is something to catch just about everyone’s fancy.
Occasionally I’ll hear from someone who has made their way there and come across my work. I love hearing the stories and links to their common ground. One such connection was made a while back with a woman who was pondering what to do with her need to create and we corresponded about where she was on that journey…ready to take a big step.
She wrote a lovely follow-up note after reading last week’s blog and with her permission I want to share it with you…it’s always a boost to hear when an artist’s hard work pays off. I’m so proud of her…
From Tina Hickman…
Hi Heather – so happy to see you back online as I had been hoping all was well! Not sure if you remember, but I’m the woman from NH who left you a note at the Granary, telling you how much my son and I enjoyed your work. Since then I’ve been in touch a few times via email – telling you about my own journey; pursuing illustration for children’s books. Early next month I’ll be recieving my certificate from RISD in Children’s Book Illustration (after a looong 3 years!), but I want to tell you THANK YOU.
You had written a bit on month about Great Women Artists, what it takes to be a woman, and the challenges of focus, and time, and being selfish. To make a long story short, I took my small talents, and made a dedicated place for me to work (my studio instead of my dining room table), and among other small changes I became “selfish” with my time, taking my time and focusing, and felt good about it. The results of these changes were my increased happiness and confidence in my work – but the results were also validated this weekend at the New England Regional Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Conference – were I took home 3rd place in the published division for my Book Cover Illustration for “Island od Blyue Dolphins”. I am THRILLED – and I owe you a huge thank you for helping me to see.
OK I’m back… if only for what was supposed to be a quick entry and has now taken me two hours just to sort through some photos for ya.
I have begun to get emails and inquiries from some of you who have been worried about my blog absence…along with some not so gentle nudges for updates and more photos…I am heartily sorry and phenomenally busy. More that the usual crazy around here but we are all well and, as you will see in the pics here…just plain plowing through the spring.
With a very few exceptions I have been painting non-stop getting ready for the big Granary show this summer and a June show at Gallery 1261 and a special exhibition in Santa Fe in July ! I promise to fill you in on all of those very soon.
But for now here are some highlights of our early spring weeks…
The Lake Placid Lackeys came for an extended visit that spanned the entire month of April and right on into May. Jon was working on a stunning stone project in lancaster and commuted from our place while Zoe and her mom Tonya hung out with Gran and Mima. When T went back home to her teaching gig Zoe took over grandma sitting and we worked in the garden and built a new arbor with raised beds for some more veggies and herbs and a grapevine. I gave Zoe her first woodworking lesson at the shaving horse. And she got her very first taste of Reeser’s ice cream !
On the back end of that trip we spent my favorite day of the year at the Sheep and Wool Festival. It was one of my all time highlights to introduced Zoe to this event and except for one very big and loud Baaaaaahhhh…she had a blast.
Now it is mid May and the northern visitors have left and all that rain, the wettest April on record, has indeed brought the most beautiful May flowers I can remember. The beach rose which I brought back as a tiny seedling from the island is in full bloom and her scent carries me back to the bluff every morning when I come over to the studio yard to begin the day.
A loving couple of bluebirds has taken up residence in the blue birdhouse in the studio garden and all day long they flit around perching on the tops of shovels and dogwood branches and they have christened the new arbor as their very own sky box for a view of our comings and goings.
Herself and Finnegan have developed a daily walking routine that is getting them both in fabulous shape and they are unchaining my ankles from the easel for a couple hours on the sunny days to let me work in the garden which is helping me to deal with pre-show stresses. Frames and professional photographs are starting to come in for the finished paintings and the studio is a beehive of activity. Look for previews here soon and details on all the upcoming shows.
And last night we attended the Dutchland Roller Derby Bout with the debut roll of our first grandaughter Amanda…or as she’s know in the Rollerderby world…Seeds of Destruction ! (that’s her…the blur of a watermelon helmet with tiny pink shorts complete with sewn on watermelon seeds…of course ). It was awesome and terrifying to watch her confident, atheletic and graceful body spin round and round that track. She jammed her way through that pack with style and grit and, though there just isn’t enough padding in the world for her grandmothers, it was amazing to watch her. (In the bench shot you can just catch a glimpse of the mascot…an Amish girl and her black hatted little brother who ran around the ring with cowbells to rally the fans. It’s not your mother’s roller derby anymore.)
So our spring has been bookended with time spent with the oldest and the youngest grandchild…doesn’t get any better than that.
I’ve been chained to the easel for long hours and late into the night and thought I’d take a break and write a quick blog to catch you all up.
The Granary Show is coming together. This year I have decided to focus on a few core themes and explore the subject matter across several paintings. A large central work accompanied by some other takes on the theme and then including smaller sketches to add some whimsy. The frustrating part is that I’m running out of time to meet the ambitious goals I set when I came up with this idea. Back when we were still enjoying turkey leftovers and looking forward to months of snowbound studio days.
Now… I haven’t been slacking off. Those winter months were productive but I had some commission work to do and an exciting Santa Fe show to paint for…stay tuned for that announcement… but here we are with easter bunnies and ham sandwiches and the clock is ticking.
One of the “themes” I’m working with is … Laundry. Yes, that most humble, and dare I suggest…sensual, of the household chores. Back in the early days my friend Rex Wilder, the world famous poet, wrote a poem called The Folder. It echoed perfectly the act of love that goes into the folding of a lover’s freshly washed linens and seemed to capture what I was trying to say in this painting of the same title (circa 2000)…
Pat is, as I write, up at the laundromat …lovingly washing and folding my clothes.
And I… am getting ready to play around with these three little panels…
It’s a PERFECT painting day…dark and stormy skies and rain puddles for Finn to play in while I set up a still life with tea towels and teacups and clothespins.
And at the end of this day…the promise of a sushi birthday dinner !
that’s where I’ve been for weeks now. It’s super crunch time as I see the deadline for the July show coming closer….and closer. Every waking minute needs to be spent with brush in hand in order to meet the ambitious goals I have for producing more and better work this year.
You will have noticed that writing blog entries, which can sometimes take hours, have been shelved along with dinner invitations and all other social interactions, except for PT which is keeping my knees and back from seizing up all together.
I do monitor the incoming channels via email, internet and facebook so the outside world does get in… in short controlled bursts.
This morning one of those playful but interesting FB threads came through from a friend…World Book Day. Grab the book closet to you right now. Open to page 56, and choose the 5th sentence. Publish it as your status and write these rules as a comment. Don’t choose. PICK UP the CLOSET book.
I am a book lover so… I reached behind my easel chair and grabbed the closest book…it turned out to be Mechanical Drawing for High Schools by French and Svensen, used by students at the George Washington High School in Manhattan, N.Y.City between 1936-39…interestingly enough one of the students who signed it out in ’37 was George O’Neill…almost a relative ?
I use this book as a prop and it has appeared in several paintings…here’s one called Book Mark…
and a recent one, By Design…currently available at the Granary Gallery
So I opened to page 56…
and the 5th sentence reads…”When a pictorial sketch is dimensioned, the only additional consideration is to use care to see that all extension lines are either in or perpendicular to the plane on which the distance is being given.”
Which was a much needed reminder that the muses are here…just over my shoulder as it were…helping me struggle through the long hours of trying to get those extension lines just right…
Here is a shot of what I was painting when that facebook comment came through on the iphone beside me…complete with T-square in place to make sure those carefully considered doors are perpendicular !
It’s been a couple of seasons since we had the pleasure of John O’Hern’s company in our little corner of the planet. As part of his east coast travels, he came to the studio to interview me for the American Art Collector Magazine. John is one of those rare humans who has a thriving curiosity, the intellect to follow where it leads, and a profound peace at the center of his core. The combination makes for stellar conversation and his rapier like wit always keeps me on my bog-Irish toes.
I’m so grateful to John for his continued support and to Joshua Rose, the editor of AAC for profiling my work in this issue. The magazine is my go to source for the latest from artists and galleries and I’ve found something new and important for my work in every issue.
The February issue will be out soon, if not already, but here’s a peek at the first page of John’s article…
When I decided to paint this wonderful old truck that now lives out it’s final days on the farm just over the hill I had no idea that it had one more curtain call in its life of serving show business.
The painting was on exhibit for the show in York last November and I was surprised when a line formed of people telling me that they knew the truck, knew of the circus, were IN the circus and each had a fountain of memories about the good old days in which that truck played such a big part.
Since then, many of the performers have been in touch. They have a Facebook page which archives the history of this small town summer circus which was started by Dr. Charlies W. “Doc” Boas who was a professor at York College, here in PA. (Some of their anecdotes are posted below)
The painting is now on exhibition at the Granary Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard, which you all know is where a good portion of my creative energy and inspiration comes from.
Recently, I’ve made a conscious decision to step outside of my Pennsylvania studio more often and paint what I see in my own backyard. The truck is something we pass daily as it rests in the iconic fields of corn and so the muses called.
So, with the synergy and symmetry that lights my way these days, it was no surprise to read from one of the circus alumnae that this very truck was on the ferry over 3 decades ago bringing the Circus Kirk family to the Vineyard. The first circus to play on the island. My friend Ted remembers the dancing ladies !
A great big thank you to all the members who have taken the time to write and share their stories with me…
here are just a few…
From Charlie Boas (son of the founder) –
It ran for ten years in the 60’s and 70’s. It was the creation of my father, Dr. Charles W. “Doc” Boas. It was staffed with almost all college and high school students and usually only played in the summers. It was based outside of East Berlin, PA in Adams County. Most of the youth who worked for the show mark it as a major event in their lives, and my dad is sort of a revered cult figure. Dad passed away in Stewartstown about ten years ago. The truck you depicted is sort of an icon, toiling away in a field outside of York. Your painting gives it a wistful quality which I find to be bittersweet. The circus was a big part of my life during my formative years and sometimes I feel like that part of me is indeed out to pasture. Incidentally, one of the big adventures we had on the show was the time we loaded the whole show on the ferry and played a date on Martha’s Vineyard. What a great audience, and what fun to take all the trucks on the ferry. I recall it took two or three loads to get them all over. We were the first circus ever to play there.
Thanks for making the painting, and thanks for letting me ramble.
From Jeffrey Gabel –
In 1971, I was fresh out of college and my first job in show business was with Circus Kirk, a student summer tented circus out of East Berlin, PA which is 15 miles northeast from Gettysburg in rural Adams County. In addition to performing as a clown, I drove the stock truck in your elegiac painting “Out to Pasture.” I also painted the circus logo on the truck. It’s amazing the truck has survived because it was already ancient in 1971 as was the entire fleet of Circus Kirk vehicles. Everyday, I loaded the truck with five ponies, one obstinate palomino horse by the name of Golden Rocket, his arch enemy Bama the Lama, Munch the Wonder Goat, a the mongrel dog act, and Pork Chop the trained pig. Talk about a menagerie! And those poor animals had to suffer my jerky driving because I learned to drive a stick shift on that truck so my shifting was anything but smooth. What stories I could tell you about the adventures in that truck, traveling the highways and byways of rural Pennsylvania and Ohio. And the breakdowns!
we have been off the snow storm track for the first part of this winter so all those marvelous nor’easters are blowing right by and leaving six or seven flakes on the ground just to tease…
today… an inch !
I’ve begun the serious work of narrowing down the best compositions for the winter’s hibernation. The list…the short list…is over 30 paintings. When I count out the weeks, the days, between now and the big summer show at the Granary Gallery… July 17th for those who might wish to know… the realist in me, no pun intended, might anticipate 12-15 solid pieces, one of which will be another very detailed 8 footer. So… the pressure is on !
With my supply of ready-to-go panels dwindling I can’t wait for the weather to warm up before putting some more in the pipeline. The newly roofed garage is cleared out enough to provide ample workspace and though it is not insulated or heated the space heater and afternoon sunshine warm it up enough to work. At least that was the case until this morning.
The snow means no sun and the temps are well below freezing. Even though I keep the adhesive next to an iron and use said iron to smooth and secure the canvas to the panels…and even though I have Finnegan laying at my feet and the Koln Concert vibes warming up the rest of the garage…it was too cold for this artiste. I got one more panel wrapped and fled to the warmer studio.
A couple weeks ago I finished a painting which featured this compost pile…and uncharacteristically I’ve gone back a couple times since to tweak the light and shadows…not quite satisfied that it was singing.
Yesterday morning…as Finnegan and I made our way to work through the back gate… I passed the compost pile…
and just that little bit of snow, almost an inch ! , gave a place for the raking light to…well…rake. I’m going to go back one more time…with today’s snow falling outside and the fingers warming up…and see if the muses were right.
