Tag: Studio Visitors

Sky chair summer

Posted on by heather

After the big summer shows I usually come home and crash…
for a week…
then get right back to the easel.

Well, this year I’m taking it slooooow.
We have been blessed with a new studio apprentice, Alex.
Here he is with his Dad, splitting away the mountain of wood that arose
after the two great, but sadly decaying, pin oaks came down last month.

neighborly

Alex is one strong, enthusiastic, and smart worker, and he is making it possible for this old artist to cross off a long list of chores that have been put on hold…for a decade…while all focus has been on painting.
He has begun to learn the art of panel making and is teaching me a thing or two about snakes, and we’ve both enjoyed some spoon carving on the back porch after the mornings of hard work.
Pat and I feel like we have won the lottery as far as good neighbors go. Every which way we turn, we find kindness and generosity. Believe me it is appreciated.

And, after all that fun morning work…the garden beckons.
Those straw bales are producing, and though I have had an attack of storm trooper squash bugs, there has been progress…

albino zuke early harvest watermelon

Time to try the new slushy machine…

slushy

and of course… Reesers…with friends

reesers

and, at the end of these perfect summer days…

sky chair summer sky

Sending you love from the Sky Chair.

5am…enough light to see

Posted on by heather

That’s the note I found this morning, on the studio kitchen table, written on a scrap of cardboard, with a sharpie, found beneath the pile of framing tools, which were left untidied, after a long day of framing, and print making, and general mayhem making.

The Follansbee arrived just after I put out the lanterns last night, stopping for a pallet on the studio floor, as he made his way home from a week of teaching woody things down at Roy Underhill’s place in NC. So, the note was all we got to see of him this time, but we had a good visit on his way down south last weekend.

the master carvers tea

His hair is long enough now to tie in the back and a good bit whiter. But the sparkle is still there in those eyes. Gonna catch up with him and the family in the fall, so that’s ok then.

The day dawns, a little later for my own self than the master carver, and Herself has left to ship two new paintings out to the Sugarman Peterson Gallery. There is an opening for that show on July 3rd, in Santa Fe, so today you get the first peek at them…

All Her Eggs  – 16 x 20

All Her Eggs 

Scape  –  12 x 13

Scape

From the sharply pointed pen of Mark Twain…

“Put all your eggs in one basket. And watch that basket.”

Eggs courtesy of Dru and Homer, who farm a CSA just over the hill. They are as delicious to eat as they are to paint. The eggs.

And just out that window and a little to the right is the little wren. Always.
When Zoe is here, she relies on the wren’s first trill of the morning to signal that it is ok to get her giggly self out of bed and start her day.
In the early summer she has a different job.
This summer she has built her nest in the birdhouse just above the garlic bed.
I wait with lusty anticipation all year for the garlic to send forth those gorgeously delectable curly scapes, and this season, her babies hatched on the very same day they appeared.

She spends her busy days now bouncing from Ted and Polly’s wind chime, to dancing from scape to scape.
So, there ya go. Ted is having a blast, directing the muses every which way I turn around here.

Look for these two garden graces to be winging their way out west this week. And if you are in Santa Fe, please stop by to visit Michael and Christie Sugarman and say hey for me.

Now it’s on to more framing…
stay frosty out there.

 

Now here’s a mystery…

Posted on by heather

Last night I started a painting.
And I replaced my crusty old palette box with a brand new one.
It is just a plastic box to hold the tablet of disposable paper palettes…and this new one comes with a lid… I misplaced the lid from the old one centuries ago.
But, in spite of my excitement over the prospect of being able to cover the paints every night, thereby keeping down the dust…and this week the pollen…which is coating EVERYTHING….
Well, it seems I forgot to cover it…and this is what I found this morning…

pal

If you look really closely, you will see tiny tiny tracks.
It would appear, she writes putting her pipe down next to her deerstalker hat, that some creature crash landed into the raw umber which always anchors that upper left corner, and then walked, or dragged, her fee,t or perhaps wing tips, over to the translucent yellow brown, then ambled down to inspect the greys. The ivory black seems to have held no interest and the path doubles back on itself then forks over to make a straight line review of the warms, ending in a flurry in the bottom right corner as she built up the strength to climb up and over the side, leaving tiny amber tracks on just a few of the brushes before disappearing into the studio night.

I am filing this under the category, “At work in the studio”.

At least someone was…

My palette pal.

Anticipation…

Posted on by heather

Beach Rose

Just that.

I’m waiting…or as Rex and Rocky Horror would say…SHIVERING…with anticipation.

This scraggly corner of the garden is supposed to be all abloom with beach roses…

scraggly

That three week behind thing is messing with my head.

But Celeste appeared outside my easel window last night, right on cue, to cheer me up…

celeste

The dear one is taking on the mighty task of helping me to weed. Love that bunny.

OK…PAINT !!!

I love a craze…

Posted on by heather

This is Phyllis’s fault.
One photo shared on social media and now look…

back bales
Straw bales upon raised beds begun

And then there’s this…

potatoes
Future site of Potato Farm

And this…

home base
If you build it…

Here’s the manual…

bk

And the link to do your own research…click HERE.

This all seemed like a good idea in February. And Pat is now best buds with the farmer over the hill who has loaded up every one of the 40 plus bales we absolutely needed.I have had great fun experimenting with fertilizer and have replaced over 40 washers on the old rugged hose. And, despite our efforts, things are starting to grow…

straws

beets

peas

Most of us on the east coast are experiencing the slow to warm up  spring which has been a good thing for us old lady gardeners who have day jobs to which they should be attending. But I’ve already made use of the wisps of straw which collected in the back of the truck  in two paintings…so…the bales are props !

There is new life in these old bones and the extra weeks of cooler weather has allowed this gardener to pace herself. I had time to add a new bed dedicated to blueberry bushes…

blueberry

and build a better lid for the cold frame and an annex to the raspberry bed…

frame

and …weed !

As of yesterday, all the bales are conditioned…read the book…and I’m ready to install the drip irrigation system. The back beds, with the strawberries, were started a month or more ago. There is good growth there and the row cover system allowed me to save the tenders from all three frosty nights.

We got a good rain last night, though it wasn’t enough to wash the poo off of the eagle cam…ugh. And Saturday is the SHEEP AND WOOL FESTIVAL …YEAH !!!!!!!!

So that means today I will have to knuckle down at the easel and limit my outdoor putterings. Seriously. I have a LOT of painting to do.

So, this is Phyllis Disher Fredericks fault !

 

Where has your hat been lately ?

Posted on by heather

os game

I don’t get to use this category very often…

the “Where’s YOUR hat been lately” one.

Partly because they are now a vintage item. I’ve been meaning to update the logo
and order some new ones because it’s kinda fun and I’ve noticed the ones on the heads of friends and patrons starting to look a little ragged.

But yesterday I brought out the original to mark the occasion of our first visit to Camden Yards. It was the perfect day for a baseball game and Scott Allocco brought us to his park to play. Nice bonus that the O’s were playing the Red Sox, I left that hat at home.

And, in answer to the Sox fans who lamented my desertion…I’m a fair weather fan at best and a sucker for a good hat.

hats

A beautiful day with a fine friend and another check on the bucket list.

Back in the studio it’s time to …PLAY BALL !

Fiddly Dee

Posted on by heather

Fiddlehead-Primavera

It’s almost, almost that time of year again…

This morning my favorite mystery writer, Laurie R King had a post on her facebook page about the fiddleheads that she scored at a market in San Francisco and tried for the first time. It reminded me, among other things that I wanted to let readers know that her latest Mary Russell novel,

image

is a fantastic read. I usually save her novels to listen to when I paint especially complicated paintings because she is similarly in love with detail and I get swept away with her thoughtful prose. Makes the time fly at the easel and I always learn something new.

So run to your local bookstore and add this to that pile by your favorite chair. And then go take a walk in this fine spring air and hunt for fiddleheads. Warning, not all ferns are edible so do the research, or trust your local farmers market.

I am working too hard with the brushes to walk amongst the woods, but I am yours…

Dreaming of Fiddleheads

A Wild Patience

Posted on by heather

With appropriate nod of copyright credit to Adrienne Rich,  I carved this quote on many a chair slat over the years. Today, as I begin my day in the studio office, it is a trusty touchstone.

a wild

The entire rest of the studio, who am I kidding, the ENTIRE studio is in chaos. Stacks and piles of creative detritus have displaced any semblance of order and calm. Remember that bucolic “winter of hibernation” that I so piously settled into…well all that intense creative energy leaves mountains of not so creative debris in its wake unless you clean up after yourself. Which…I…do…not.

Someday, very soon, there will be a reckoning. But here I come to find that it is already March. MARCH for goodness sake. The mantras of inward patience crash headlong into the outward pressures of deadlines for show dates and demands from galleries to provide new work…which is a stupendously wonderful place for an artist to be do not get me wrong…but hello…March !

This would be a good time to let you know that my summer show at the Granary Gallery has been moved up this year. I’ll be reminding you, and my own self, again, but for those who do make travel plans to join us for the openings I wanted you to have a heads up.

The date this year will be July 12th.

And that would account for the WILD part of the patience.
One less week of prep time does mean I have to move some serious paint around now and I have been putting in some very long days and nights at the easel.

I’ve got a new theme going this year, stay tuned, and, as the finished paintings begin to gather in the front corner of the studio, I have to laugh at those muses. While all around me is this insane mess and clutter…each of the panels, when I stop to look, has a quiet calm space and a slightly more muted palette which settles my eye and quiets my mind.

Make of it what you will…I’ll keep plowing ahead until the board of health comes tapping on my chamber door…wait…is that ? …

NO…it’s just Wolsey …ever and always my feathered muse.

woolsey

 

Day 2

Posted on by heather

The-Whipper-In

From 2003 – The Whipper In
This one has only been seen once in a show at the Granary. I think it is providing insulation in our bedroom at the moment. It’s our log cabin living room and, if you’ve been there then you are in a very special group of friends and family. The painting upper left is a reproduction of one I did for the Follansbees of their front yard. Kinda fun to see that again. As of last night, that fireplace is still keeping us warm…

Painter’s Notes – click here

Transit

2004 – Transit

This one hangs in the studio and I get to look at that ocean every day and dream.

Painter’s Notes – click here

The-Flyer

2005 – The Flyer
Boy did I love painting that red. That mail bag was a victim of the major flooding we had a few years ago. Loyal friend Susan Douglas took it home and lovingly cleaned it and I just unearthed it yesterday for a new painting idea. Then I went up to the old studio, which is now my prop room, and found that jacket too. It wasn’t quite right for the new painting, but it was a solid yes for The Flyer.

Painter’s Notes – click here

OK – Ken Vincent…you’re tagged.