Jackrabbit

Jacorabbit / oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68 includes shipping

sold!

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, he's not a bird? Whatever you do, don't tell him! 

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Peonies

ON A COLD AND GRAY MEMORIAL DAY MORNING, I met some other painters in a peony farm in Exmore and we set up to paint. The peony season was pretty much past, though the flowers that remained were incredibly beautiful - deep fuschia, palest pink, brilliant white, and rich with petals fragile as torn tissue. Gorgeous.

Here are two paintings from the day.

Above, Peony Rows, oil on black canvas, 4x12, $88 unframed, includes shipping

Peony World / Oil on black canvas / 11x14 unframed / sold

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For Today
(a long one, but worthwhile)

Peonies

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready

to break my heart

as the sun rises,

as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open - 

pools of lace, 

white and pink -

and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes 

into the curls,

craving the sweet sap,

taking it away

to their dark, underground cities -

and all day

under the shifty wind,

as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies

and tip their fragrance to the air,

and rise,

their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness

gladly and lightly

and there it is again - 

beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.

Do you love this world? 

Do you cherish your humble and silky life?

Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,

and softly,

and exclaiming of their dearness,

fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,

their eagerness

to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are

nothing, forever? 

- Mary Oliver