The Tamed and the Wild

When Worlds Collide. Oil on canvas, 8x24, $100.

Close readers of this blog will recognize this as the same spot where I painted On Golden Field back in September. It's just an open field at the side of Route 184 - but it is lovely and ever-changing.

It must be marshy. One day last year, I drove by, and there were about 30 cows standing knee-deep in the field, mooing and having themselves a fine time.

I could hear them today, but I never saw them, so they must have been over the crest of the hill.

In this painting, I really like the way the tamed and the wild come together. The lawn to the left of the painting could not be greener or more cultivated. The field is wild and chaotic and free. And the two meet, and coexist, like so much of the best in life.

Confessions and Ideas

Field No. 2. Oil on canvas, 8x24, $150.

OK, confessions first.

In the middle of the night, when I am roaming the house, looking for sleep, I have come very, very close to ordering Sham Wow, a sponge that holds 12 times its weight in liquid.

When my arthritis is acting up, I find myself wondering how handicapped you have to be to get a handicapped tag for the car.

Prompted by television commercials, I have worried that I might have peripheral artery disease, chronic dry eye, irritable bowel syndrome, restless leg syndrome and an overactive bladder. I can barely wait to see what I worry about when I hit 60.

Here are some ideas: If I had a landscaping company, I would call it "Lawn Order."

If I had a crane company, well, "Ichabod Crane."

The world would be a better place if we had a device that helped locate car keys. You know, there's that button you can press on the base of the cordless phone that tells you where your husband has left the receiver? I need one of those for the car keys. Also, maybe there should be an alarm that sounds if you get too far from the car keys. (I have mislaid a set of car keys, and have torn the house apart looking for it).

Have I written all this before? It seems so familiar, but then, of course, these ideas have been kicking around in my head for years.

Field of Memories

Field of Memories. Oil on stretched canvas, 16x20, $150

Eric Bryson was my first true love. We met, I believe, in the choir at the Second Congregational Church. We became friends and we dated and remained friends even after we stopped dating.

We had, and still have, a rich and complex relationship. Eric became a friend of my family in general, and my mother in particular. The two of them had similar senses of humor, and similar senses of the absurd. They argued well, too. I became close with Eric's parents, too, and for years, we were in and out of each other's homes, and pretty much always in each other's lives.

We've seen each other fairly regularly since Peter and I moved back. Some of these visits, sadly, have been occasioned by deaths. But this one wasn't. Eric came over to the house, said hi to Peter and the dogs and saw my studio ("Gee, Carrie, at the age of 53, you finally have a clubhouse," he said.)

We drove to a field on Route 2, just past the casino. I painted and Eric let me talk him into sketching. I gave him some charcoal and a pad of Wallis paper. This is a grayish brown paper, very thick, with a heavily sanded finish for picking up charcoal or pastel marks.

I started painting and we began talking and laughing and reminiscing, and after an hour or so, I asked if I could look at his drawing. Sure, he said. And when I went over to the back of the car, where he'd laid the paper down to draw, I realized that he was drawing on the back of the sheet.

Well, he said, he was drawing on the white side.

Honestly, the two of us laughed and laughed. And I had to think of my mother. She'd have howled.

The Ancient Voice

The Dying of the Light. Oil on canvas, 8x24, $200.

It's November, and I am hungry all the time. I'm dieting, but that's not the reason. This hunger is something more primal, something ancient and deep and unconnected to today or tomorrow or what I had for lunch.

This hunger is about caves, and the thick skins of animals. It's about nestling, curled with my brothers and sisters in the curve of our mother's belly. It's about hot breath catching in clouds in the frigid night, and about the whipcrack of trees as the frozen sap breaks in the winter wind.

This hunger feeds on fear and darkness and the sense that nothing will ever grow again. This hunger knows no satiety. It grows from the gnawing knowledge that snow will cover the plains and keep the herds from roaming, and unless this hunger is met now, it will consume us all in the deep of winter.

It's November and I am hungry all the time. I listen in the night as the coyotes howl and I know they are hungry, too.

Time for Time

Early Evening. Oil on canvas, 8x24, or 24x8, $150

The first days of the time change always leave me feeling pressed and pulled and somehow watery. Nothing in my soul has caught up. Even my eyes are working wrong.

Though these days end early, they start early, too, and for those of us who roam, sleepless in the night, this is a welcome change.

These lonely dawns have a special edge. The solitary vision of the insomniac, the single focus of the troubled sleeper, the unmet hope of the exhausted, all these are softened by a sunrise that seems to offer itself to you alone.

All too soon, this light of early dawn will drain away. And so, unsettled though I am by time's erratic passing, I will greet the day with quiet joy, and listen as my heart sings the song of morning.

Openings and closings

Arabesque. Oil on canvas, 10x30, $200

Thursday, Peter and I went to the opening of the South County Art Association's Regional Open Juried exhibition, and he was toasted and applauded and awarded a richly deserved $150 for one of his beautiful photographs.

Friday, I went to the closing for the sale of our house in New York.

All I can say is yippee on both counts.

Peter's work was by far the standout of the South County Art Association show. The exhibit is strongly contemporary, very edgy, and pretty interesting. If you're in the area of URI, stop in.

The sale of our house was by far the standout of October. It's been on the market for two years, and we've come close to selling it a number of times. This time, finally, the sale went through. I will miss our lovely, quiet spot on the river, but I could not be happier to own just one house, and one with a sunny yard and this fine studio.

I'm pretty excited about this painting, and hope that I've set it at a large enough size that you can see it on your screen and also see the nearly sculptural quality it has in places.

Thanks for reading!

Quonnie

Quonnie Pond. Oil on stretched canvas, 16x20, $200

OK, all you Rhode Islanders... "Quonnie" is short for...?

Quonochontaug.

And that's fairly close to Misquamicut and Weekapaug, and not so far from Wequetequock or any number of other hard-to-spell places.

I went to the Fire District Beach with Peter one golden afternoon this week. First, it was just us there in the parking lot, me setting up to paint, and, closer in, him putting on his waders. Then, almost before you knew it, there was a small town of fishermen there - and yes, they were nearly exclusively male. Erika and Samantha and Ashton came down, and Erika's fiance Jon came also, and I painted feverishly while the sun raced toward the horizon.

The fishermen stayed long after I did, fishing for stripers and blues. The sun set in an absolute fire of magenta and orange, streaks of color so vibrant they made you speak aloud and stir with wonder and awe at the beauty of this world.

It was a sparkling afternoon, the kind that we live for in New England.

A footnote here. In my snit of the other day (I am over it, thankfully), I failed to send you to a place where you can see my husband's truly brilliant photographs. Go to jacobson-arts.com and click on "Photographs by Peter Jacobson". Or just click through from this posting.

Thank you for reading!