Gone Fishin'

As I write this post, I'm in Maine with my dad to share a week-long vacation. Later this morning (Saturday) we leave Bethel and drive to Port Clyde where we'll take a ferry to Monhegan, a one-square-mile island I've never visited before. Ten miles off the coast. No cars allowed. Watch out for dangerous cliffs. Woo hoo!

I've packed a tiny travel art kit, but don't know what shape this vacation will take—don't know if I'll paint, don't know what my wifi situation will be, don't know if I'll post, don't know but what I might extend the internet part of my vacation even after I return home.

Just know I'm getting on a ferry and heading to Don't Know!

Below, a place holder until I return.

color study
4x4"; acrylic on canvas
abstract
2014

August Benchmark

Stepping into painting/creating almost always lets me step out of whatever is on my busy mind. I slow down and 'get lost' in the act of painting. Often, thoughts and memories bubble up from my subconscience. Today's meander:

August 1975. Teaching in the summer program at Landmark School. Lunchtime. Sitting with a few women at a picnic table overlooking the Atlantic. None of us married, then-new acquaintance Sylvia and I with weddings on the near horizon. Topic of discussion: would we keep our maiden names or take our husbands' surnames?*

August 2018. Sylvia and I have been BFF's for 43 years now, and our respective marriages are very much alive and kicking. Pretty awesome.

Happy Anniversary, Sylvia and Dan!

As We Go Along, Ways Open Before Us
4x5"; acrylic and ink on paper
abstract
2018
[gift]

* We took our hubbies' names.

Emergency Preparations

When dire weather warnings are broadcast, some folks rush to the grocery store for food and water. I make a beeline for the library.

As I've said before, do not ever leave me without a sizable stack of books on my bedside table.

Painted up another bookmark today. On the back, I wrote a few lines from the following excerpt, an endearing passage that appears in Rebecca Wells's novel Little Altars Everywhere:

The library will only let Sidda and me
check out two books at a time,
which drives us nuts.
We live in the country, I tell the librarian,
we need more than two books to last us!
My daughter and I are fast readers,
we are avid.
But the old bat behind the counter says,
Two books a patron, that's our limit,
no matter where you live.
Sometimes I watch my daughter smuggle
an extra book out and,
even though I know I should,
I just cannot bring myself to stop her.
Sometimes you just have to reach out
and grab what you want,
even when they tell you not to.

Even When They Tell You Not To
1.5x6"; acrylic and oil pastel
abstract
2018
[gift]

Speedy Delivery, II

Last week I hung out with Joan of Art again for a day of messing about with paint.

Painted quickly, intuitively, impulsively, experimentally—Sylvia, I was trying to imagine and then channel how you feel as you paint!

activated paper by painting a bunch of colors
and scribbling through them while they were still wet

layered with more paint and some ink

more paint

ink, stenciling, paint, done

What did it feel like to paint this way? Terrific! Satisfying! Fun! Expressive!

Another speedy delivery.

Speedy Delivery

Belting Out was delivered after a protracted, sometimes painful, contraction-by-contraction-by-contraction labor.

Lonnnng delivery if ever there was one.

One day recently I was emotionally preoccupied and had no focus to bring to my studio. I grabbed a ready-for-reuse calendar poster from my stash and did nothing more than spread gesso on it and then scribble through the wet paint with a metal skewer.

I ended up using the start as a wipe-off-my-palette-knife page. That baby was born and breathing on its own after a labor—if it could even be called that—of no more than seven effortless minutes.

Speedy delivery.

Speaking of Speedy Delivery, a phrase I've borrowed from Mr. Rogers, if you haven't yet seen Won't You Be My Neighbor?, do.

While She'd Been Inside, Someone Else Had Arrived
11x14"; acrylic on paper
abstract
2018

Color Theory

My theory of color: I wonder what will happen if.

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collage paper painted with acrylics hand-mixed to match 'grenadine' bathroom towel

Salle de Bain Gallery

Many moons ago I enjoyed an active correspondence with my friend Anne—lots of postal art flying between our homes. I set a clear acrylic easel on the marble top of the master bathroom vanity and rotated Anne's art through my Salle de Bain Gallery frequently.

Bathrooms and art! Great combo!

Ever since my hubby and I completed (well, almost) our recent bathroom reno, I've had the idea to create a painting as a final decorating touch.

The bathroom grays inspired the background color for this now-completed-but-in-process-almost-as-long-as-the-bathroom-took-to-renovate abstract floral.

Two days ago, I did some acrylic color-mixing to match our pop-of-color hand towels.

Yesterday, the wrought-iron hardware on the vanity suddenly sparked a solution to my bedeviled conundrum of how to anchor the busy pink-and-red flowers.

Today, white porcelain offered up an idea.

Belting Out a Song in the Shower
11x14"; acrylic, latex, India ink, oil pastel, and collage on paper
floral pastel
2018
[not for sale]