Cape Charles Sunset

 Cape Charles Sunset / oil on black canvas / 11x14 / $250

sold

MY KOKO is staying with my friend Susan while I'm in Arizona, and Koko's absence has changed the dynamic of this house more that I ever thought it would. And it's changed my view of her, as well. 

Every morning, when she is here, she comes into the bedroom and greets me, wagging and curling her body around in a circle, so that her wagging tail is close to her nose. Often, she sniffs my butt with that always wet, always cold nose, then stations herself in front of me begging to be petted, blocking me step by step as I try to walk into the kitchen. 

When it's time for breakfast - and she knows the time with remarkable accuracy and certainty - she barks and barks and leaps into the air, spinning around in circles in her excitement. She gets the other dogs all riled up, too. I put down Woody's food first, then I get the Demons into their apartment and put down their food and shut their door, and at this, Koko jumps up, bonks me in the butt with her forepaws, and runs into the kitchen where she barks and spins around in circles before spending all of 8 or 9 seconds devouring her meal. 

Koko knows what time I should go to the studio, and if I seem to not be complying, stands in front of me and barks until I either shut her down or give in. When I pick up my phone , and unplug the computer to go to the studio, she barks wildly and leaps around. Then, outside, she finds a toy or a stick and comes charging at me in her play run, front legs stiff, shaking her head and murdering whatever she has between her mouth. 

At the end of the studio time, when I turn off the heater and the lights, she often jumps up on me (this is forbidden), begging for kisses, and then she barks and spins, so happy to be going inside. 

When I pull out the leashes for our walk, she barks and leaps and spins and stirs everyone up. We often meet Liesl, my walking partner, in the street, and I will drop Koko's leash when I see Liesl coming around the corner, and let Koko run down Bayview to greet Liesl. Koko races down the road, tail wagging, and jumps up on Liesl, kissing her and groaning at her, with funny little throaty groans. 

Whenever visitors come to the house, Koko adores them. She greets with barking, jumping delight, and climbs up in their laps, staying as long as they will allow her. In the evenings, Koko snuggles between my legs on the couch, demanding to be petted, often licking me until I have to yell at her to make her stop. And at the end of the day, she jumps up on the bed, snuggling - and then leaves to sleep in a chair in the living room. 

Her behavior and how I feel with her gone makes me think of my own self, and how Peter must have felt when I went away on trips. Koko is a lot to handle. I am a lot to handle. Koko is loud, enthusiastic, demanding. I am loud, enthusiastic, demanding. Annoying, even. But I miss her loud, irritating, annoying enthusiasm. The days without her have been less colorful, less fun, less full of life. I am pretty sure this is how Peter felt. On one hand, it was good to get a break from me. On the other hand, life was less interesting without me here. 

Until Koko went to stay with Susan, I did not know that Koko was the enthusiasm leader of the pack. I didn't realize how much energy she has, how much delight she pumps into the days. I did not realize that it was her, more than any of the others, who required me to keep living after Peter died. I just didn't know. And while I'm sure I will be irritated with her from time to time when she comes back, I know from now on, I will go far out of my way to adore her, to honor the blessing that she is in my life. 

Above, Koko and Lulu, when Lulu was a puppy

Koko waiting to see Liesl

She wanted that cookie so much, I eventually gave it to her.

***

Coda

Every Dog's Story

I have a bed, my very own.

It's just my size.

And sometimes I like to sleep alone

with dreams inside my eyes. 

But sometimes dreams are dark and wild and creepy

and I wake and am afraid, though I don't know why.

But I'm no longer sleepy

and too slowly the hours go by. 

So I climb on the bed where the light of the moon

is shining on your face

and I know it will be morning soon. 

Everybody needs a safe place.

- Mary Oliver

The Marsh in Spring

The Marsh in Spring / Oil on black canvas/ 11x14/ $250 plus shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to buy this painting! 

IN PART OF "THE ROAD IN," yesterday's entry here on the blog, I found myself using long strokes, full of paint, rather than the short, choppy, juddering strokes I usually use - and it felt like a new world was opening up for me. 

I think that the more kinds of strokes I master and can use in any painting, the more colors I actually learn and know, the more potential my paintings have to be interesting, expressive, reflective.

 I've used long, swirly strokes in the skies for a while, but never, as far as I can remember, for the ground. Making the long strokes in the painting above felt like pulling back sheer curtains to see more clearly the window behind them. The view hasn't changed - it is just more clear. 

***

Coda

The Uses of Sorrow

Someone I loved once gave me 

a box full of darkness. 

It took me years to understand 

that this, too, was a gift." 

- Mary Oliver

 

The Way In

The Way In / Oil on black canvas / 16x20 / $500 including shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to buy this painting

TO MY AMAZEMENT, I have started dating. It was a brief experience, and it ended not well but not horribly, and while the whole thing utterly shocked me, it was an important if painful step, and I feel blessed and grateful to have taken it. 

The person with whom I was involved could not have been more different from Peter, and perhaps that made the whole thing easier - though none of it was easy. I wept for taking my heart away from for grieving for Peter. I trembled at what felt, at first, like a betrayal of him. I scolded myself for taking this respite from grief. But I went ahead.  

It was hard to take that big step into living again, and to be reminded, with each inch of road I traveled, that I was edging away from Peter, from grief, from my old life, even, in a way, from my old self. Taking a first, brief journey on what might or might not be a long new road. 

I had thought I'd be alone forever, that love would live only as a memory, and that that would be enough. And who knows? Maybe this small and, in the end, unhappy romance was the only one that will come my way between now and whenever I am too old. But maybe it's not. 

And even with the pain of failure and breakup - a pain I haven't felt or considered for 40 years - I hope it's not the only one. But if it is, I still believe it was important to do this, to wager my heart on the hand of love. 

***

Coda

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mind.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again. 

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - 

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things. 

- Mary Oliver

Cardinal in a Dogwood Tree

Cardinal in a Dogwood Tree / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to buy this painting

THE CARDINALS HAVE BEEN FLOCKING to the feeder, and it makes me happy to see them.

The males catch my eye, always, but it's the females I find myself watching, and enjoying their subtle colors, the way their plumage blends with the still wintry, mustard-colored grass. In fact, thinking about them this morning, the way they flit and flash and tilt their heads, feathers showing orange and yellow and even a hint of green, thinking about them has spurred me to make another painting of a female. 

***

IN A WEEK, if all goes according to plan, I leave for Arizona for about a month. This is my usual winter trip to visit Dad and Paula, though this time, it will be different. 

For starters, I usually head out in late January. I've never been there in March and April, and am hoping to see the desert in a little bit of bloom, and the country, in fact, in a little bit of bloom. 

Usually, I choose my route to avoid snowstorms and ice storms. And while they are still out there, or were, this week, it will probably be spring storms, thunder and lightning, tornadoes, that I'll be trying to avoid.

My friend Carol is coming with me this time. I've never made the trip with another person in the car, and while I am a little hesitant about it, and about not having those long, lonely hours on my own, driving and watching in silence, I think it's probably good this trip to not have those long, lonely hours on my own, driving and watching in silence. 

We will stay for a few weeks, spend lots of time with Dad and Paula, and I will paint, on the way, out there and on the way back. I am not doing a formal painting trip this time, but will post the paintings and the story of my travels, here on the blog. 

I have a lot to do before I leave, but it will get done. I am so hungry to see and paint and drive through a different landscape, I can barely wait to go! 

***

Coda

"I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart." 

- Vincent Van Gogh

Spring Fields

Spring Fields / Oil on canvas / 18x24 / $650 plus shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to own this painting! 

SO MUCH RAIN HAS FALLEN that now, even after a week of sun and wind, there are puddles in the fields, and in the lawns and throughout the low places in the woods. I love the way these bits of standing water pick up the colors of the sky, and put them where they should not be - a little bit of heaven in the middle of a field. 

I noticed the other day that around the puddles in some of the fields, grass or clover or whatever is planted there has started to green up, in a beautiful circle around the puddle. Water of life, certainly. 

I love painting fields, with the furrows leading somewhere - usually to a house or barn in the back of the field. But on a drive to Frederick, Maryland, this past weekend, I noticed fields with furrows leading off obliquely, and in patterns. 

Different, for me - and I like it. What do you think? 

***

Coda

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold; when it is summer in the light and winter in the shade." 

-  Charles Dickens, by way of my friend Lisa Zander

Bluebird with a Blueberry

Bluebird with a Blueberry / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold

A COUPLE OF MY DAFFODILS have bloomed - and I celebrate this today, but the process has been excruciating. I've watched them every day, sometimes, it feels like every minute, waiting for the green to turn to yellow. Finally, today, it happened. 

I feel eager for so much. Impatient. I am the watched pot, or maybe I am the watcher. Either way, it's a journey of degrees. Inches. Moments.

And all of it goes against what I'm trying to learn in this time of Lent - to live, balanced and complete in this moment. 

I can't stop myself from imagining, from waiting for the end of the covid, of the isolation, the imposed solitariness. The presence of my family in my visual and tangible life, after more than a year. 

I'm waiting for the wind to warm, for vegetables to be bright and fresh, for fruit to be sweet and juicy and cheap and plentiful. I'm watching for the perennials to start poking their heads through the weedy mulch, promising color after all these drab days of winter. 

I am impatient, yearning, hardly able to contain myself. Aren't we all? 

***

Coda

"One never learns by success." 

-Josephine Preston Peabody

House Sparrow

House Sparrow / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68, including shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like this painting

LAST WEEK, I heard a spring bird, singing wildly, singing beautifully, repeating her song again and again as night spun off into dawn. 

She made me happy, this one bird, singing as though there were no tomorrows and no yesterdays, as though everything that possibly could be right in the world was indeed right in the world. 

She made me smile, and made me realize that, in my heavy, plodding two-footed, wingless life, in fact, everything is as right as it could possibly be. 

***

Coda

"Ambition is the spur that makes man struggle with destiny. It is heaven's own incentive 

to make purpose great and achievement greater." 

- Donald G. Mitchell

 

My Octopus Teacher

My Octopus Teacher / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold

A WHILE AGO, I asked friends on and off Facebook to give me names of what I call "feel-good movies," which, in my mind, are generally (but not always) smaller movies, generally but not always with lesser-known actors. 

My friends assembled a great list, which I've included below. I'm not sure that all of these qualify as "feel-good," but I've included even the ones that I think maybe are just comedies, and not necessarily feel-good movies. I'd put "A Fish Called Wanda" in this category, for instance. 

I am not sure that "My Octopus Teacher" qualifies as a feel-good movie, mainly because the octopus dies. The narrator (who is the only other character in the movie) tells you right at the beginning that the octopus is going to die, so I was prepared. But I have avoided all sort of movies because it is clear to me, sometimes even from the titles, that the dog/cat/squirrel/whatever was going to die. 

The movie so enchanted me, octopus death notwithstanding, that I made this painting. 

OK, here's the list. If there are movies on it that you sort of remember from a while ago, but haven't seen in a few years, I encourage you to go back and take a look. I've been delighted when I've done that. 

Big Night

The Thomas Crown Affair

My Octopus Teacher

The Birdcage

Enola Holmes

Bread & Tulips (available on YouTube)

Legally Blonde

October Sky

Shirley Valentine

American Dreamer

Must Love Dogs

City Island

Strictly Ballroom

Tin Cup

Radium Girls

The Goldfinch

Don't Let Go

Genius

Tiger

Just Mercy

Penguin Bloom

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

A Model for Matisse

Waking Ned Devine

Billy Elliot

The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Big Little Farm

Little Miss Sunshine

Funny Farm

Keeping Mum

Lars and the Real Girl

Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Baghdad Cafe

Harold & Maude

Notting Hill

Love Actually

Dear Frankie

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Mrs. Palfrey at the Clermont

Tea with Mussolini

Madame Souzatska

A League of Their Own

Hunt for the Wilder People

Whale River

Garden State

School of Rock

Julie and Julia

Something's Gotta Give

Rudy

Inn of the Sixth Happiness

The Holiday

Chef

Hamlet 2

What About Bob

Someone Like You

Crazy, Stupid Love

Hairspray

Goonies

Silver Linings Playback

The Fisher King

The Princess Bride

When Harry Met Sally

My Cousin Vinny

Joe's Apartment

Angel in the House

Hugo

Pleasantville

Wall-E

The Station Agent

The Dig

Nobody's Fool

Keep On Keepin' On

The American President

Dave

Romancing the Stone

Please Don't Eat the Daisies

The Hundred-Foot Journey

A Knight's Tale

The Intern

Up

It Happened on Fifth Avenue

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Operation Petticoat

Some Like It Hot

any Studio Ghibli film

Amalie

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

While You Were Sleeping

Sleepless in Seattle

When Harry Met Sally

Finding Your Feet

Grumpy Old Men

Peanut Butter Falcon

Second Hand Lions

The Proposal

Nothing to Lose

The Magic of Belle Isle

Slumdog Millionaire

Yesterday

RV

Fool's Gold

Blow the Man Down

Shakespeare in Love

Book Club

Enchanted April

Women

Under the Tuscan Sun

Mr. Holland's Opus

The Secret Garden

The Full Monty

Two Family House

Say Anything

Begin Again

Truly, Madly, Deeply
Singing in the Rain

Heaven Can Wait

***

Coda

 

"Your aspirations are your possibilities." 

- Samuel Johnson