You Go to My Heart

You Go to My Head

Oil on canvas, 18x18 

Please click here to contact me for information on price and availability

I've been heartened lately - in fact, more than heartened... excited, amazed, thrilled! - by the rapid sales of three recent paintings. I posted two on Facebook and sent one out in my most recent newsletter, and they all sold.  Two were florals much like the one above, and the third was the floral-focused landscape to the left. 

Peter, my dad and my stepmother all have been urging me to paint more florals, but I've resisted. I've loved the florals I'd made, but in a way, I felt I was at the end of the road with them, much like the paintings of food, the underground, birds, palm trees and on and on. I wasn't feeling challenged, wasn't feeling there was much to discover. The rush of adventure and experiment that I love so much, that is at the heart of my painting, seemed to have gone. 

That all has changed. And while I don't know specifically why, I think it is just because I've grown as a painter. The paintings I made on the Big Skies Painting Trip, and that sustained immersion into painting and solitude, led me to new places and taught me things I hadn't known I didn't know. 

And lo and behold, it's all spilled over into florals, in a happy confluence of what I'm enjoying painting, and what people seem to be wanting. 

I've found that if I paint simply hoping to sell, the paintings seem to lack some bit of life, some invitation to buy. They don't engage the viewer because, I think, they didn't truly engage me. I was painting with a purpose that should be secondary but had wiggled its way into being primary, and that tamped down the life of the pieces.

But I need to sell my art. I can't just paint them and keep them, or paint them and give them away. So I need to make paintings that sell. And in these florals, at least for now, I think I've found a strange and exhilarating balance of my delight and yours. 

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IF YOU CAN come to the Paradise City show in Marlborough, Mass., March 24-26, you can see these florals in person, and let me know what you think about them. Do they interest and inspire you? What do you like, and what don't you like? 

For more information about the show, and to get tickets for discounts on admission, please click here. 

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Stuff I've Seen

Here's Ted, who's shown up in my booth at shows from Michigan to California! He came to the show in Tubac, dressed to the nines, as always, and was as kind and upbeat as ever. 

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Dog of the Day 

It's Blanco, a huge sweetie, who lives with my friend SaraBeth in Tucson. 

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A Final Thought

"A writer - and, I believe, generally all persons - must think that whatever happsn to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art." 

- Jorge Luis Borges

Oxoboxo Morning

Oxoboxo Morning

Oil on canvas, 16x16

A few years ago, a friend and I started exchanging photos of the sky every day. It started because we'd found ourselves fascinated by the sky - her by the vastness of it, me by the colors and patterns, the stuff in the sky. 

We set out to exchange the photos for a year, but by now, it's three, going on four, I do believe. It's been a wonderful project, allowing me to see a part of her world, through her eyes, every day. In some ways, I've learned to see like her, a little bit. The project has helped me develop a new sense of vision, a new perspective. And it's been fun. Some days, the sky where she's been is exactly the same as the sky where I've been - even if we're half a world apart. Some days, the skies could hardly be more different - even if we're only a couple hundred miles apart. 

This is a painting I made from one of her photographs. I love the sense of dawning light in it, the bright colors in the sky and big dark humps of hills. And mostly, I like the touches of red at the tips of the tree branches, a promise that spring is indeed on the way. 

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I'LL HAVE THE "Oxoboxo Morning" painting, and some of my new florals, like the one to the left here, at the Paradise City show in Marlborough, MA, March 24-26. The show is in the Royal Plaza Trade Center. Marlborough is on I-495, about 45 minutes west of Boston, and 30 minutes east of Worcester. You can click here to get directions, and here to get a coupon for $2 off the admission fee. I'll be in Booth 404! I've done this show twice, and so I can tell you that it is a beautiful show, much like the one in Northampton, but smaller. And without the great Indian food... but I will get my fill at the show in May! 

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Stuff I've Seen

I saw this sign Vinton, Louisiana, on a beautiful road lined with Spanish-moss-hung live oaks. People were fishing on both sides of the road, a salt marsh on the east and 

a beautiful, fishy creek on the west. 

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Dog of the Day

The show in Englewood, Florida, was no good for selling art, but it was great for seeing dogs! 

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A Final Thought

"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, 

and on his own terms, not anyone else's." 

- J.D. Salinger, "Franny and Zooey"