Well I’ve been back at work in the studio now for a couple weeks and having great fun playing around with teacups and pencils and rocks, brushes and barbie dolls. But I’ve been woefully remiss in writing blog entries…mostly because I returned from the Vineyard show renewed and ready to hit the easel and have beenmuch happier sitting in that chair than at this computer. So there ya go.
But the other night, when I finally put down the brushes and left the studio to walk over to the log cabin…it was DARK ! Where did that summer go ? I was nestled in the air conditioned studio when the heat wave broke so I’ve not been paying attention to the world outside and the whispers of a new season approaching caught me off guard. I’m on it now though. Finnegan and I can walk a little further in the early morning as the temps cool down. Pat and I can sit out in the studio yard at night and not be chewed to bits by bugs. I actually opened a window the other day. Can that be the sound of Zola’s school bus I hear in the distance ?
Anyway, life goes on and quite merrily here by the Little Conewago Creek, and I hope the last days of summer are full of fun for you all.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot.
What brought me to the computer chair today is to let you all know that another Granary Gallery show is happening this weekend. A theme show that artists from all three of their island galleries were invited to participate in. The theme this year…ACTUAL SIZE.
Here’s my take on it… titled, ” Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. ”
It’s actually the shelf right behind my easel chair…with a bit of artistic license…or simply just wishful thinking… in the mirror.
For 19 years Martha has been a trusty, loyal and sassy set of wheels for Miss Pat. Many of you have ridden in Martha, or been picked up at airports, or driven for a swim at the lake, or over the river and through the woods to and from Gran’s house, or buckled your children’s car seats in, or had your backpacks and hiking gear stowed in the trunk, or your prom date’s dress tucked safely in, or helped to load her up with mulch or bales of hay, or waved as Gran drove her slowly away from your houses. Coming or going…this blue Volvo and Pat Lackey have been one undifferentiated ego mass …from hello… and all who have had the pleasure of coming along for the ride have been kept safe by her dearold machine.
We knew the time was soon approaching when we would need to think about letting her ease into retirement. And for years, literally thousands of miles, Pat worried that Martha might be on her last legs. I mean really…. read this number carefully…
Our only serious concern was that Volvo only put six spaces on this odometer. Her magician of a mechanic Shane has kept this old girl humming for almost half a million miles. And Herself has been religious about keeping Martha oiled up and shiny.
It came down to air. Really WE gave out before she did. One more summer without air-conditioning was the final straw. But still… the thought of having to give her over to an auto auction…to a STRANGER ! Well, it just was too hard to bear. But as luck would have it, our grandson Isaac was in need of a car and he jumped at the change to, in his words, “take her off our hands”.
So we set Bob to the task of finding us a new ride and he sure got us a sweet one…and… at only 2004…such a youngster !
So Isaac and Pete met us at the dealership this morning and we signed on the dotted line. Pat got roses and I got a hat and we all got Wilbur chocolate and we each got keys. Isaac got a lesson in where the fuses are…every single thing that has ever gone wrong with this car has been fixed with a 5 dollar fuse…
and she got some shiny new plates…
and now Martha will get to do some city driving with a dreadlocked dude at the wheel. We know she’s in good hands because she raised all of the grandchildren. Isaac’s DNA and crumbs from his ice cream cones are an important part of her patina. So as hard as it was for Pat to say goodbye to her longtime companion and protector…it was with great pride that she could hand the keys, to a car in such great shape with over 440,000 well earned miles on her, to her grandson who will get some serious bragging rights and will take her for the next half a million miles.
Thank you for keeping my family safe Martha, I lift my chocolate bar to you !
It has been a little over a week since my father died and there seems to be an endless stream of logistics to attend to, paperwork to be filled out, emails to answer and to write, and thoughtful considerations to be made by a caring committee of siblings.
Woven through the long hours in the day has been a gossamer thin thread of sadness. It’s soft and shiny enough that I only catch glimpses of it through the haze and weariness of dealing with all the details of death. Living with a hospice nurse for twenty years means I recognize it as grief. But knowing that it is my father who holds its fragile and faraway end has a sharper edge about it than all the other times I’ve seen it. This one is amber in color…with an Old Holland Red Gold Lake glaze…and has both a startling beauty and a staggering pain.
So, while I know it’s there and see that it’s trying to catch my attention, I am busy right now.
It’s been hard to concentrate at the easel. I’m finding just how much the creative act of painting draws from my deepest emotional pools. It doesn’t surprise me that now, when those emotions are so much closer to the surface, they have such a direct line from the heart to the brush.
So I’ve chosen to do some large muscle therapy.
Finn has been getting me up with the first birdsongs well before the sun rises and we’ve been spending those first cooler hours of the day doing the heavy lifting of turning the compost into the garden soil and getting the beds ready for planting. To Finnegan’s great pleasure we have a plethera of plastic pots. The best dog toy in the world…for our Finn…is a black plastic plant bucket. She will amuse us all for hours with those treasures. I will not embarrass her by sharing my favorite pic of her with one of them on her head like the proverbial lightshade but you get the idea that my gardening obsession is feeding her playful spirit as well as brightening up our yard…
Here in this corner of the planet we are three weeks past the last frost date. Our most tender vegetables should be into their teens by now. I am catching up. I recycled the wood that the roofers left behind in December and have made 5 new raised beds. The greenhouse bed is now in it’s second planting since the ridiculous heatwave has bolted most of the greens…
The best neighbors in the world, Sue and daughter Zola, drove their tractor over this weekend and…while Zola minded the best friend pups, Jed and Finnegan…Sue and Pat and I hauled a huge pile of soil up to the top of the yard. The next day I framed it in with the roofing scraps and made a bed which will nourish some watermelons this summer and, in the fall, will be planted as our long awaited asparagus bed.
We’ve expanded the vegetable garden in some unusual ways…
These back beds are producing peas faster than we can eat them this week… and yesterday I planted bush beans, watermelon, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, onions, and runner beans…
And then there’s the great potato bag experiment…went a bit overboard here… so I’m told…
And the roses, oh the roses, they are doing such a good job of lifting my spirits…
And the greatest gift of all… from Gulliver. I inherited this rose bush from the previous owner. For the last three years it has been eight inches tall and only bloomed once. One single flower. Until I put Gulliver’s wind chime there, just outside of my easel window. Now look at it. Gully likes it when I sit in this chair all by myself in the morning. She rings loud and long to let me know that she’s still got my back.
Finnegan is listening to her too…and learning from both her predecessors how to take good care of me.
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.
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 !
This is all good. Last Friday was in the 70’s and, even though we started the day with a hospital visit for an infusion of Reclast, we stopped on the way home for a picnic and a walk in the park with Finn and enjoyed most of the day just being out in the warm sun.
The rest of the weekend was no picnic. The occasionally reported flu-like reactions to that drug turned out to be more like the Dengue Flu. A short controlled burst of the pneumonia I was plagued with this time last year… and then some.
But, hopefully, short is the keyword in that last sentence because I am marginally better each day and back in the studio this morning. The pretty snowfall that we awoke to has helped to send me back into the much needed winter of creative hibernation and the continuing muscle fatigue and soreness is forcing me not to shovel this one out.
The days of laying in a sick bed were not completely wasted as I signed back up with Lynda.com to challenge my brain to learn something new in Photoshop. Long story short, last week I learned that I had fallen prey to purchasing a bogus Cs5 upgrade a few months ago. It had started to crash and burn which led me to realize that my computer which had been having it’s own problems was actually 5 years old now. Ancient in the graphics world. And, with the unexpected sale of a painting here in the studio, I decided to bite the techno bullet and upgrade both hardware and software at the same time.
As an artist who pays homage to detail, I have spent as much time sharpening my computer skills lately as I have my pencils. Both are tools and only as good as the craftsman who uses them so I study and practice and learn. The tutorials are terrific because I can work at my own pace and dip back in for refreshers as needed. I have already learned about fifty things that will make a huge difference in my “workflow” and am eager to try them out with the new machine.
It’s all about getting the composition up on the panel as efficiently and quickly as possible…then I can settle in and let the muses take over.
Now, it’s time to put this bump in the road behind me and get back my mojo…
This is the chair I would like to be in this morning…
But this is the chair that I’ve actually been in all morning…
Because being a self-employed professional artist is serious…well…business. Which I think they should be a required course for any art major these days !
And lately this seems to take up a whole lot more of my time that it used to. And the creative right brained visual learners amongst us can empathize with the struggle it can sometimes be to balance all the numbers on those little bits of paper that the CPA would like you to sort out. It is only one reason that I am intensely grateful for our team of accountants headed up by Pam Bazella at Brown, Schultz, Sheridan and Fritz in Lancaster, PA. They are clever and patient and kindly have our backs and I simply could not function without them.
Self-promotion is another aspect of “the business of making art” (which should also be taught in that art major’s curriculum) and it can be layered with a healthy dose of narcissistic potholes that are sometimes hard for the shy me to step over and around. But it is a vital part of being successful when you are measuring your goals with mortgage payments and health insurance bills. So I swallow…humbly…and plow ahead with announcements each time a new rung of the ladder is reached.
AND I have another partner in this adventure…and this life…without whom I could not exist let alone function…Herself, my Lackey, my Pat. So it is with great relief that she has made it home after a week of watching the new grandbaby up in the north country. I was happy and oh so jealous that she got some good bonding time with Zoe…but happier to have her home with Finn and me.
We have had one day in the last two weeks with temperatures above freezing and I was able to get out to the garage and finish wrapping the rest of the panels working late into the last of that afternoon sunshine.
But, along with the rest of the country, we have been shivering ever since. In this part of the state the meteorologists use Harrisburg International Airport as the official temp. gauge. This morning I happened to be at HIA and could verify that it was indeed 1 degree outside. And since the little dribbles of water that we had left running from both of log cabin faucets decided …..to….stop…….dripping……..yesterday…………morning……………I can attest to the fact that it is too cold for those panels to be out in the unheated garage.
So I have brought them all, all 20 of them, inside and up the steep and narrow stairs to the library loft.
Last night I got the first coat of gesso on the back sides. This is more easily done with a wide putty knife…unless the plastic one you bought for this purpose was used as a chew toy by your apprentice…
Today I will turn these all over, give the canvas a light sanding to remove stray bits of dried gel medium (which is the adhesive I use to attach it to the Dibond) and then …using the new putty knife…will start the first of several coats of the acrylic gesso. I find that I can use the scraper up to about the third coat before the streaks it leaves are too prominent. I’m going for the smoothest, weave-free look possible.
The final coat will be with the Art Board Gesso and probably brushed on. But I’m eager to see if working up in the loft, with it’s great source of light, will make any difference to how well I can apply the final layer.
This all will have to wait just a bit longer however…since the phone reception is poor up there…and I am monitoring a delayed flight due to mechanical troubles…and the computer has now become command central until my traveler is wheels up…and safely back down.
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!
