Rex
Oil on canvas, 12x48
On Jan. 1, I celebrated 30 years clean and sober. It's really a miracle! I was high, on one substance or another, for most of my 20s. I am quite sure I'd be dead now if I hadn't found AA, and my Higher Power, and Peter, and the strength and spirit I needed to get and stay sober. Interestingly, stopping the drinking and drugging was the smallest part of the process. Learning to live again, that was the most of it, and continues to this day.
One of the things AA promises is that "We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness." Look at Rex here. Isn't he all that and more? That's what he says to me, and what I felt while I painted him. He's realistic and abstract. He's dark and bright. He's got the essence of "longhorn," and also the essence of "art." He's everything I learned before my Big Skies Painting Trip, and everything I learned on it - and was able to bring back and do In The Studio, as opposed to out in the air, where everything is easier for me.
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Speaking of Out in the Air, what's your guess as to the location of this telephone pole? Haiti? Bangladesh? Mumbai? Nope. Mystic, CT. Go figure.
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Dog of the Day
Good-looking chow, isn't he? Looks like he owns the world - as all good chows should.
Want your pet to be the Dog of the Day? Send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com
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A Final Thought
"The point is that you learn how to make your work by making your work, and a great many of the pieces you make along the way will never stand out as finished art. The best you can do is make art you care about - and lots of it!"
- David Bayles and Ted Ormand
from "Art & Fear / Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking. I'll be quoting passages from this small, amazing, inspiring book for the month of January.
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