Home Away from Home

Home Away from Home

Oil on board, 8x16, $125 including shipping
sold

One of the things I love about the palette knife is directionality - that the direction of the knife has such a strong bearing on the painting. Here, the sweeping strokes I used in the sky move your eye up, and the direction of the furrows moves your eye toward the little house.

 I do understand that maybe there is such a thing as too much movement, that maybe in this painting the sky detracts from the ground and vice-versa, and maybe it does -  but experimenting is the only way that I find what works, what is too much, what is too little.

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Stuff I've Seen

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Dog of the Day

Saw this great-looking guy at an RV park in Arivaca, Arizona, 

where you can bring your own RV, or rent a classic RV for the night. 

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A Final Thought

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."

- From Love Locks, a Hallmark movie

Arivaca Dawn

Arivaca Dawn

Oil on canvas, 20x20

Please click here to contact me for price and availability

In just a few hours, I'll leave Arizona and head east, toward home - and I can hardly wait.

I've had a great stay here, and I'm sorry to go. Dad and Paula and I have spent wonderful time together. The sun has warmed my bones and chased my winter blahs away. I had great fun with my friends Cynthia and Kevin, and their friends (and now mine, too), Ruth and Tim. I saw my Arizona friends, had lunch with Linda and Lois, visited my artist friend Brenda Peo and saw her home and studio. I had a somewhat lackluster but not terrible show, sold a painting afterwards (one of my favorites ever), and made this painting, which I absolutely adore.

I could stay another two weeks or more and still be deliriously happy here, but the pull of home is strong, and I can't wait to get there, to be with Peter and the dogs, hang out with my friends, spend time in Wachapreague, smell that Eastern Shore wind and see that beautiful Eastern Shore light.

So it's the perfect time to leave.

Above, my painting in the landscape. Below, the moment I painted.

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Stuff I've Seen

I suspect I've posted this before, but it makes me smile every time. 

Exit Zero, the last exit in Texas on I-10

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Dog of the Day

Saw this cutie in Florida. Adorable! 

Want your pet to be the Dog of the Day? Send a photo to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

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A Final Thought

"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." 

- Henri Cartier-Bresson

Arivaca Grasslands

Arivaca Grasslands

Oil on black canvas, 10x10, $125

Please click here to email me if you'd like to buy this painting

A few years ago, at a show in South Carolina, I met a couple - Patti and Miguel - who liked my paintings very much and bought a couple of them. I warmed to these two right away, and as we talked, we found that our paths had crossed in a remarkable number of ways. 

One of them is that Patti's father and stepmother live in Arivaca, Arizona, very close to Tubac, where my father and stepmother live. I was invited to lunch in Arivaca and I went and had a great time. 

Arivaca is a fascinating little place that, according to my dad, and a story in the Arizona Daily Star, Arivaca "has been a haven for miners, ranchers, hippies, smugglers, addicts and retirees." It's a small, dusty town with little to brag about, and yet, I find myself charmed by it. Around Arivaca are hills, mountains, grasslands and rivers that are usually dry. Cows and horses wander about, crossing and recrossing the Arivaca Road. Ranches dot the landscape. In town, there are adobe and wooden houses, trailers and mobile homes and a couple off-the-grid hunting cabins. A working ranch helps troubled boys straighten out their lives. 

The place has touched me somehow with its roughness, its rebel history, its eccentric citizens. I enjoyed my visit, and my time stopping to paint on the Arivaca Road. 

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WHILE I WAS in Tubac, I met Karen Pomeroy, who runs Equine Voices, a rescue operation for horses and mules. Equine Voices is in Green Valley, just up the road from Tubac. 

Karen has a tremendous operation in Equine Voices. The organization houses 61 animals on 15 acres. They rescue horses and donkeys from abuse, neglect and abandonment situations, and have a focus on adopting mares whose urine has been used to make premarin, a hormone-replacement drug. The urine is only useful when the mare is pregnant, so these horses are impregnated again and again and again over the course of their lifetimes. 

Animals are adopted out regularly from Equine Voices, and sponsorships, donations and volunteers are actively solicited. It's a really great program, and I hope you'll take some time to look over the website. 

I'm going to work with Karen on some ways to raise money and awareness, so you'll be hearing a lot more about Equine Voices in the future! 

Dad and I visited Equine Voice together, Here's Dad with Gulliver, the mascot for the operation. There are quite a number of big draft horses there, along with donkeys, including this fresh guy, below. When we approached him, he was rolling in the dirt. 

This gal was about to give birth. I was hoping it would happen while we were there, but it didn't! I'd love to see a baby donkey. 

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Dog of the Day

Well, nuts or not nuts, we're adopting two more dogs. That will make six, for all of you who are counting. These two are catahoula leopard dogs, or at least their mother was. She was killed by a car when the puppies were 10 days old. Three of the six pups died. The other three ended up in the capable hands of our friend Christine Stark. We were going to take just the blue-eyed one, but the little dark-eyed one worked his way into our hearts - and the two will probably be better together than they ever would be apart. 

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A Final Thought

"Every good painter paints what he is."

- Jackson Pollock