It’s been stressful in the studio this week and I have been finding solace in my early morning walks with Finnegan.
It’s not safe to walk a pup on our street so I drive 10 minutes over to a local park and we walk for half an hour or so. The farms along the way are close to harvesting corn and sunflowers and the other morning, when we got a particularly early start…and just as we crested a small hill…the sun was a firey re/pink globe hovering over pockets of mist that hung in the valley of the fields below. I have driven that way every day since and the late August morning mist is there but not that spectacular sun.
Here’s a look at yesterday morning’s mist giving way to the sun…
I have a couple other paintings in the works which the Granary Gallery has requested but I am taking a small detour to work on the challenge of recording these peaceful early morning vistas while they are still fresh in my mind and before the snow flies.
As Polly would say…Shake yourself together ! and indeed I have.
A sweet sadness is in the air this morning. After a long life of loving and laughing and raising a family of 10 magnificant children with passionate curiousity and free spirited thinking and a nature of true kindness…and after a very brief window of going… our dear friend Julie died last night.
Here is her shining face with Pat in the studio a while back. Pat was honored to help care for Julie in the last few weeks she had on the planet and to send her peacefully to her much looked forward to reward of once again seeing the love of her life…her husband Frank.
Right about now they are getting that red canoe off the top of the station wagon and over to the lake… and all I need to know of love…is the hint of Frank’s pipe trailing in their wake.
Dear Julie, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest…
With two of our favorite girlfriends… Amy and Sue. We go waaaaaaay back and finally found a slot in all of our busy schedules to reconnect….they brought the bagels and we brought the puppy kisses.
These women have the most powerfully positive and peaceful energy and Finnegan was instantly in tune and in love…
Amy even gave Finn her first lesson in the Art of Wi …
But all this excitement was tiring out the wee one…
In the wake of yesterday’s news of the death of Andrew Wyeth it has been somber in the studio. The view outside my window, of a weathered Pennsylvania stone barn and raw umber fields of stubbled winter cornshalks, echoes his own corner of farm land not far from here … and it settles my soul.
Many of you know our tradition of hanging wind chimes in the gardens in honor of loved ones who have died…and you won’t be surprised that this one will need to be special. I’ve decided to make it out of my old brushes.
In my studio, brushes live their lives in stages. I buy in bulk and on sale and only when I’m desparate and the new ones live in a state of reverence in the best of the old jars and mugs until I absolutely have to have that pristine spring and flow. The “working new” then get prime real estate on the table alongside my easel. Separated carefully from the grunts and wiped with the softest rags before being put up at night.
Try as I might, it doesn’t take long before they blend into the rest of the crew and their sabled edges begin to fray and the glossy sheen of their nickel plated ferrules no longer brags. I wean them out every other day or so …the hardest worn, stiffest bristled get tossed into an empty liquin box. When that is full, and the pile has spilled over onto the table, and Gully’s tail has knocked four or five of them on the floor and under the air purifier…then I gather them all up for a serious cleaning.
Last night I threw this bunch into a coffee can with about half an inch of Windsor Newton Brush Restorer in the bottom. I learned the hard way that this stuff will melt the finish off of the wood, seeing as it is paint !, so I try to make sure it stays only on the bristles. They hang about in that overnight and then I settle in for the tedious second stage which is to scrub them in the tub of Masters Brush Cleaner. Then the big rinse and they’re laid out to dry.
The best of that batch are returned to their staging areas …
and the stragglers who refused to come clean are relegated to the graveyard…a box under my workbench…
which, until today, had been the final resting place.
But now I’ve got a better use for them. I’ll let you know when I’ve got Andy’s windchime up.
In the meantime… I’m curious … where do your old brushes go ?
