Musings Archives - Page 25 of 37

The Caretaker

Posted on July 10, 2013July 8, 2013 by heather

Today we leave the Chilmark store and continue up island…past the long lines of devoted fans waiting in line at Chilmark Chocolates, down the hill and over the little bridge that was washed away by Great Hurricane of 1938, slow down when you reach the Quitsa Pound, and just after the dog leg you hang a left onto Greenhouse Lane.

Now this is not a public road, just a sandy old chisled up vineyard kind of a lane that has been used gently for centuries. For the last three decades it has led me to the closest thing I have ever known to home. Camp Sunrise, in all it’s humble glory, sits on the edge of the bluff overlooking the dramatic vista of the Atlantic Ocean. And sadly, that sentence is soon to become past tense.

Much of the island’s south shore has been devoured by the recent series of intense storms leaving unprecedented erosion. A handful of vintage buildings which, for the last few years now, have been tenuously clinging to the craggy edge of the planet…are losing their grip.

So the beloved old chicken coop of a cottage must be torn down. I can hardly bear to write that sentence. So many years of magnificent memories there. A new house has been designed for the meadow behind the marsh and it promises to retain the “character” of the old place. I will get over myself and summon up excitement to see it.

And I have a few more compositions from the old place which I haven’t yet painted, and which need to be painted to tell its story. And now, there will be new chapters as well as new vistas…

It seems fitting then, that this painting got finished this year…

The Caretaker – 18″ x 24″

It has come to pass.

For the second time in my lifetime,

the bluff on which this tiny house sits

has been carved away by the elements.

The spirits have reclaimed the sands

and stopped just short of its fragile wooden front porch.

It was easier to take the first time.

We were younger

and there were more of us

to remember how the pieces fit back together.

Now its time for the next generation to take care.

We older ones

the veterans of the storms

we’ll tend to the ashes

and kindle our memories

And lean gracefully into the wind.

Day Two…

Posted on July 8, 2013 by heather

Today we take a drive up island. Through the tree covered lanes of West Tisbury, out past the Allen sheep farm, around the bend and wave to Irene at the Chilmark library, through the stop sign at Beetlebung corner, left at the Menemsha Inn, slowly winding down the hill and right at Jane Slater’s Antiques shop, then through the curvy bit at the Bite, ok maybe we stop there and order some fried clams… then continue all the way out past Larsen’s Fish Market, and circle around until we find a parking spot, doesn’t matter where cause we are here.

While looking at this painting…if you turn left you would see the Texaco station and the Harbor Master’s shack…and if you turn right you will be headed out to sea. I know which way I would turn, how about you ?

Dreaming of the Fleet – 24″ x 32″

This was one of those iconic Menemsha moments. I had been sitting on the dock with my sketchbook and camera just watching the two or three fishermen who were lazily casting off of the pier. There were some very big and fancy boats in the harbor and the tired old Strider looked a bit sad to watch from her moorings as they passed on their way out to the big water.

A young boy joined the anglers and I noticed he was angling his own self for a seemingly coveted position at the very end of the dock. They all quietly checked out each other’s progress with eyes only for the twitch of a line. No one caught anything while I was there but the peaceful rhythm of the tossing of their lines was calming while I studied the scene.

Back home in my winter studio I zoomed in on one of the photographs and saw the Derby pins on the boy’s hat. So it had been serious business out there with more than a little bit of competition.

I decided to give him an edge and painted out the other wannabees so he had the dock and the waters all to himself.

And I decided to do the same for the old boats.

And, in spirit, I’m floating alongside the gull, and…In my wildest dreams…I’ve got a contender on the hook.

Ok Here We Go !

Posted on July 7, 2013 by heather

It’s time to launch the countdown to this year’s Granary Gallery Show !

15 days from now, on Sunday July 21st, we will be at the gallery for opening night. There’s a whole lot to do between now and then and, in these days of record heat, I’m going to start this ball rolling with a look back at a winter morning in the studio. I’ll be posting a-painting-a-day from now on so check back tomorrow for the next installment but for now I give you…

Morning Studio – 24″ x 30″

This was a truly collaborative venture.
And heaven help us, it is a product of Social Media.
I’ve got this blog thing going and one or two people out there actually seem to read it. So, when I came over to the studio on a cold November morning with the barest hint of light in the early eastern sky I went inside and turned on the lights, took my pill, and walked out to join Finn for our daily trek around the lower forty.

As we turned the corner, by the hibernating lilacs, I was drawn to the warm rich color glowing from the kitchen windows. Outside, and all around us, the ground, the sky, the air, was steely blue grey. The rest of the neighborhood, the farm and the houses here and over there were dark and still save for that tiny light in our little corner and the bliss felt so good…I wanted to share.

So I snapped a pic with the phone and sent it to my blog readers and facebook friends so they too would have something warm and beautiful to greet them when they awoke. Some of them liked and some of them loved and most of them thought it was a painting and more than a couple of them said is should be a painting and I guess I agreed.

I started this the week before my knee replacement surgery. I was fearful and anxious, and needed a distraction, and I deliberately left it on the easel unfinished, thinking I would have an easier time of getting back into the swing of things if most of the compositional decisions hade been made, and what was left was the detail…the fun part.

It was a long hard two months until my creative energy returned enough to make my way back to the studio. And, when I finally was able to manage the short walk over from the log cabin and turned on that kitchen light,

I knew everything would be all right. It’s all in the details.

Exciting news…

Posted on July 6, 2013 by heather

I’m thrilled to announce that my paintings will now be exhibited in the Sugarman Peterson Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico… Here’s a link to their website…Click Here

It is fitting therefore that, among the first group of paintings, they will be showing Bucket List. Thanks to gallery owners Michael and Christie Peterson I can now cross one more thing off of my….bucket list !

Mulberry

Posted on July 4, 2013 by heather • 1 Comment

We have a visitor in the studio yard…

She was spotted in the hedges near the road last week. Poor little dear had hurt her front paw and was favoring it gingerly as she hopped to a safer nesting spot.
The boys down the lane saw her next, and then the n’er-do-wells next door to them. Then yesterday, after the ambulance drove down the lane and Pat went to find out what was going on…the rest of the neighborhood came out for a gossip and everyone was talking about the baby raccoon.

Finn got her first look late the other night when the flashlight beam caught them a foot apart .So I worried, because I do, and I called the game warden. He said, matter-a-factly, that it was the time for the babies to be kicked out of the nest and she probably wasn’t rabid since she didn’t try and attack me and that she would just find her way in the world.

Harsh natural truths.

Pat sees her every time she pulls in the drive now and I’ve noticed that every car, every one of the previously obnoxious daredevil speedsters who flew in and out of our lane with completely reckless abandon…well they are now all slowing down and looking for a glimpse of our baby.

When Pat looked it up last night, google told us that they eat berries. So that is probably why she is sticking close to the mulberry tree.

And that is why, after the traditional three day waiting period…during which any animal that crosses my path has the option to disappear…but if they choose to stay longer than three days…well I am obliged to name them. And woe be tied to anyone who messes with her now…because the muses have spoken…

and she shall be called…

Mulberry.

Simply the Best

Posted on June 22, 2013 by heather

It was one of the top five best days of my life when I first walked into the Granary Gallery…and after 12 years of partnering in art… the depth of my gratitude for the fine work that the entire staff knows no equal.

Congrats to you Chris and Sheila on being chosen, once again, as the Best Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard…and beyond !

The spaces in between…

Posted on June 19, 2013 by heather • 1 Comment

When I settle in to work on a big painting my focus narrows, the creative energy tightens, and all the weeks of slogging through pondering compositional elements and deciding what to keep in and what to leave out, of sketching and panel prepping, and of reworking those sketches and printing out piles of detail reference photos…it all reaches a crescendo and, like the stretching of a rubber band, it suddenly snaps ! …and the first brushes hit the canvas. So it was, all that creative momentum strung taut, when I began the large painting, Severe Clear, for this summer’s Granary Gallery show.

But now, some 300 easel hours later, I am looking back and see, on my camera’s photo stream, that there were some wonderful moments in the spaces between all those long days of lifting brushes. When I paid homage to my most favorite springtime rituals. When I literally stopped to smell the roses, and to enjoy the first of the fiddleheads, and the first grilled pizza of the season, the annual pilgrimage to the Sheep and Wool Festival, to sit of an afternoon in the studio garden with loving family, and to enjoy this wonderful life we have together.

I’ll be telling you about the rest of the project, of which this painting is a keystone work, in little bit, a series of paintings which feature a Marine Hospital on Martha’s Vineyard that is about to open a new chapter in its historic life, but in the meantime…here’s a sneak peak at the big one, Severe Clear, and some of the studio highlights experienced along the way…

Gulliver’s roses kept me company at my easel window

At four weeks the palette was inches deep

The garlic scapes, the garlic scapes !!!!

In the truck for Herself to take to my other pal John, the professional photographer

And now, I give you… Severe Clear

Fiddle Dee Dee

Posted on May 28, 2013 by heather

Ah the rights of Spring !

And the time honored traditions of the favorite meal of my “salad days” back in Watertown…Mussels and Fiddlehead Ferns…celebrated now in my dotage…

I’m still lifting a glass of the bottom shelf chardonnay in toast to the delicacy…
But nowadays I am using my organically home grown onions and garlic from the studio gardens…

Progress

Supporting the troops…Vineyard style

Posted on May 27, 2013 by heather

I’m looking forward to watching this tonight.

The island fisherman have brought wounded vets to the MV Derby and it’s a good old American Throw Down. I’ve got my money on the Tomahawk piloted by my pal Buddy Vanderhoop…but the waters are deep out there.

Here’s a link to the trailer… Click Here

Happy Memorial Day to all !

Boomerangs…

Posted on April 18, 2013April 18, 2013 by heather • 1 Comment

An arc
Something thrown out into the world
Where it spins and bounces off of life
Then comes sailing back to where its journey began

In this case, two people
brought together by chance…by hazard
then launched into the world
to follow separate paths
in search of creative truths
and now reunited and returning …

Rex Wilder and I started our fling in the late 70’s when we met as students of life attending Connecticut College. He, with ambitions to be a poet. Me, the fledgling artist. On the road to masterpieces, we both carried around sketchbooks and filled them with earnest, if early, scribbles and thoughts. We scoured the streets of New London in search of authentic souls to gleen for signs of intelligent life in the universe. I, the Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote. And many a windmill did we tilt.

Then our trajectories divert and almost 40 years of pursuing our separate arts flies by…Rex becomes that poet and achieves fame and book royalties…I become that artist and get to paint every day.

And now the story comes sailing back to home and we, the seasoned artistes, have collided in one act of creation…

This, his second published collection of poems, is poised to be launched on its own journey…and humbly holding all those precious treasures in place…if you’ll forgive me…Suspended.

On so many levels this is magical. For us both, the circles within circles are joyous and stunning to celebrate and sitting back in my easel chair and pondering how far we’ve both traveled and being reminded of the youthful ambitious dreams that we shared finds me smiling alot these days.

I’m sure there will be much ado surrounding the official book release and I will keep you all posted about that. For now, you can access more information and even pre-order the book on Amazon via this link…click here.

And the original oil painting is currently on display at Gallery 1261 in Denver and you can visit it via this link…click here.

I’m waiting until I have book in hand to read all the poems but I have peeked at a few and they are delightful divertissements… I think you will enjoy.

Now, back to the brushes.