A group show curated by Anthony Waichulis which opens tonight ! October 10 and runs through November 1.
Two new paintings of mine will be featured and it is a personal and professional thrill to be included among the stable of realist artists from around the world. Both of these works were painted exclusively for this show and I had a freaky blast playing with the theme, Tight.
If you get a chance to see them in person please drop us a note as we wish we could be there for the festivities. Meanwhile…yours in flying brushes, Heather
The first comes alive as the fishermen rising with the tide load gear and guts and head out to sea.
And then just before sunset when their boats are all tucked in for the night the light softens colors are warmer edges shimmer and humans gather to bear witness.
In Menemsha they arrive in groups with chairs and coolers and children in tow and settle along the sandy beach to celebrate the day’s passage.
We are there too between the pilons out on Dutcher’s Dock but with the ocean behind us looking back on sleeping boats and empty fishing shacks shadowy porches and whispering neighbors.
Maggie and I had been wandering around the little town for most of the afternoon. Jane gave us both a refreshing cup of water. Then we walked out along the dock stopping outside of Larsen’s to chat for a spell with Paul and his pup. And gradually, as the crowds began to gather to watch the sun go to bed we made our way further out.
Boats coming in sun going out seabirds singing water becalmed there was magic in that gold.
It wasn’t until I returned to the landlocked studio and scrolled through my reference photos that I zoomed way in to see Paul and companion heading home up their little hill and seeing that furry deckhand readying to tie up and remembering my own trusty apprentice who had been waiting patiently for the Muses to let her artiste be done for the night…
well… getting to paint those kind of moments are what it’s all about.
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.
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”.
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 … ” : 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.”
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.
