It’s almost 4pm and I’m taking a break from the second go round of framing.
This is a profession I know well. I have been a picture framer off and on for thirty years and for most of that time I made a living doing it. Now it’s only once or twice a year that the studio is transformed into a frame shop. The workspace will never never be as small and confined as the closet in which we worked at the Harvard Coop but it is crowded this week in here and Finnegan and I are stumbling all over each other…
She has a very delicate way of maneuvering past tools and frames and original oil paintings and tiptoeing her way to find her favorite squeeky toy. She is quite the musician and I’m pretty sure she chooses among the three we have here according to their scales. We’re currently reviewing our Frank and Julie party mix and she is partial to the Frankie Capp Orchestra swing section. (You think I’m kidding …)
Meanwhile, here’s a look at the still life table cum framing table…
Is that art imitating life … or …me imitating art ?
Already knee deep in July…or is that the corn being knee high by the 4th of July ?
Either way the framing has begun for the Granary Show and here’s a look at our morning excursion to fetch the frames and paintings. We arranged to have the largest paintings done at the same time which meant only one trip up with the trailer. Both the frameshop and the photographer’s studio are within 5 miles of one another and about 20 minutes drive from the studio.
My apprentice was concerned when we hooked up the trailer that she might not be needed for this trip…thus the batting of the big brown eyelashes…
How could I resist one so ready to work…
And off we go… this is the shop I worked at while saving and preparing to give painting my full time attentions.
They are the friendliest and most helpful folks around and make it a true pleasure to work with them…
With the frames loaded it was on to see John…
John Corcoran, the king of the camera, is the man behind the magic that allows me to bring my work to the big and small screen. Every painting goes to him to be shot in multiple formats so that I have a permanent and accurate record of the image. Nothing gets by this detail guy and I am forever grateful for his stunning work, jovial good nature…and steamed dumplings ! You can check out some of his own creations at Sterling Commercial Photography.
He and Pat always have way too much fun…
But time’s a-wasting and we’ve gotta get this show back on the road and home to the studio which is beginning it’s annual pre-show craziness…
My apprentice and my Lackey have just come in to tell me to get off of this machine and get a move on…
In Mima’s honor, Finnegan and I sat on the quiet sunny summer morning porch and carefully pitted three boxes of sour cherries into Saren’s beautiful bowl… enough for two pies…one for us and one with a Z for Zola and Zack…and Zue.
A few years ago this week I was on pins and needles waiting for the orchard to say it was ok to pick the sour cherries as I was scrambling to include a painting of Mima’s Sour Cherry Pie for the recipe series in the Granary show that July.
The pressure is off this year…all the paintings that can be done are done…and it was almost a zen like meditation to have a whole hour to do nothing this morning but sit and pit.
Many thanks to John O’Hern and the editors of the American Art Collector Magazine for showcasing the painting Temple of My Familiar in their latest issue. You can access the magazine on line if you are a subscriber or find it at most book stores to read the entire article. Above is a link to the AAC website and below is an excerpt from the article. The painting is on exhibition at the Granary Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard.
Finnegan got to meet some of her pack members for the first time and she had a blast. Saren brought Margie, the lab who survived her breeding years to be rescued by the most conscientious dog owner I know and now she is living the life of Riley getting to see the best of the rest of the world…and Susan brought her loyal pal Tag who is, as we all are, missing his big sister Emma but he is now carrying the cloak of her gentle confident manner and was the perfect gentlemen.
Both were wondeful with the squirrelly little puppy and Finnegan was eager to greet everyone and kept right up with the big dogs.
All that excitement…AND her first puppy class…made for a very tired pup at the end of the day.
Today it’s all business and, with our morning rituals finished…like waiting to play with Jed at the fence…
and filling the bird feeders…
and taking up her post as sentry at the studio door…
My apprentice is giving me the freckly eyeball…so it’s time for some serious painting…
Next post will show some progress from the easel… I promise !
In a little over a week our little family of 2 will triple… and then some. The Follansbee Family will be arriving for the better part of a week so Papa can give his lectures at Winterthur Museum Furniture Forum and so that we can have our much needed fix of hugs and giggles from Mama, Rose and Daniel.
And …at the tail end (pun intended) of their visit…we bring home our new pup Finnegan !
My goal was to get this mammoth painting finished by then … sooooo brushes up !
Here’s where we stand as of 8am this morning…
After days and days of rendering those tiny little shacks I have enough detail on them to move over and get some paint on the right side of the panel. It’s amazing to me how much harder it is to get a building to appear convincingly ( jury’s still out on that ) real when it is an inch tall vs. 6 inches tall.
The line of buildings in the distance will be partially obscured by boats and pylons and loads of nautical detritus in the middle and foreground …you can see a piece of the sketch taped to the easel which I will have to re-trace on top of the foundation work I’ve done…so I’m holding off of the final details until I see what will be revealed.
But I needed to see some real progress… so last night I blew in some vegetation and roughed in a few more of the houses on the hill. I have one good reference for the late afternoon October sun that I am striving to portray…Menemsha is a popular place for islanders to come and watch the sunset and pick up their fish or lobsters for supper at Larsen’s and the quality of the air and light makes the autumn sunsets particularly magical…but when I took those photos in 2004 I was concentrating on the fishing shack and I did not pan over to get shots of the houses on the hill or the buildings in the distance. And almost all of the several hundred other shots I took in the ensuing 5 years are in vastly different lighting conditions. So I am using that age old artistic license to render a continuity of light…and throwing in some clouds to suggest that one could be blowing over at any moment and throw a house or two in shadow.
One part of sharing the process of painting something step by step that I don’t like is that you don’t get to watch the viewer as they see a painting for the first time and are drawn closer, from the back of a gallery, to discover a whole new world of details and whimsy at the surface level and beyond. Feels like I’m a bit of a spoiler.
One such conceit that I am consciously preparing for them is this tiny little version of the Quitsa Strider…
For last year’s Granary Gallery show I painted an 8 foot homage to this wonderful old swordfishing boat…so it seemed fitting to include her here…even if she’s only 2 inches long. Diminished in size but certainly not stature.
Forgive me if I take this opportunity to mention that I do still have some of the limited edition prints we made of that painting available…
Click on the boat for more information and to purchase a print.
Spent the morning framing and packing up a new painting which will be headed up to the Granary Gallery as soon as Herself gets back from her yoga class. So before I head back to the easel here are a few pics of the first weeks’ work on the big panel….
A swath of sky, then in for some long distance work and detailing, then over to the shack full of shingles… I have become quite familiar with the weathered cedar shingle and learned that there are no short cuts. Wet-in-wet seems to work well for the first layers. Then I come back in and crisp up the edges and add texture. Then go back and glaze it all down as a summer rain storm might…and back over that to bounce in some highlights where the appropriate sunlight…or shadow…would glance off the surfaces.
Breaking through the rain clouds outside of the studio… and the walls of doom and gloom that seem to surround all of us these dreary mid-winter days… came a bright ray of sunshine for art lovers and patrons alike…
The Granary Gallery has represented my artwork for over 8 years and I’m pleased to be one of the cooperating artists for this unprecedented sale. As our friend Polly often said…” It’s a good fit ! ”
So Light up your torches… put on your dancing shoes…
