You Know You Will

You Know You Will

Oil on black canvas, 30x30

Please click here to email me for price and availability

It's hard to tell, from this photograph, how bright and full of life and sunshine this painting is. This one is another of those big steps for me, a leap that brings all that I've been doing into a new light, a new place. There's a new feeling in this one, and it is something about freedom, and bliss and the simple cheerfulness of a sunny hillside on a summer afternoon.

I've worked and worked on this photograph, hoping to make it reflect the painting more truly, but this is the best I can do. In the piece, bright green dominates, and the orangey pinks of the spiky flowers hum and resonate over the green, above the blue and purple, all under a clear, sunny sky.

Unless it sells beforehand, I'll have this piece at my next show, which is CenterFest, in Durham, NC, Sept. 16-17. Click here for more info!  And if you'd like to see this piece before I leave for Durham, please drop me a line, and come visit me in Wachapreague.

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Here's a Pair that Beats a Full House

Hahahaha, it's my brother Rand (right) and his childhood-into-adulthood friend Jon, on a recent trip to Cape Cod. 

I can explain the T-shirts - the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts chose one of my paintings for their T-shirt design this year, and I gave a couple to Rand. 

I can't explain the shorts. 

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Dog of the Day

This is the dog of a friend I met on Facebook, and then later met in real life, near the Suwannee River, east of Jacksonville, Florida. It was such fun to meet her in real life! 

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A Final Thought

"I don't want life to imitate art. I want life to be art."

- Carrie Fisher

Nebraska Farm

Nebraska Farm

Oil on black canvas, 10x10, from a photograph by Jeff Swanson

sold

Well,  I've had two loser shows in a row, in Pittsburgh, PA, and Lorton, VA. At least in Lorton, I made expenses, didn't lose money on the show, and got to spend time with one of my lovely collectors, who bought Nebraska Farm, and is also a sponsor of the Big Skies Painting Trip.                                                                                                                               I have a show this weekend in Durham, NC, and while part of me is - as ever - hopeful, part of me is feeling beaten and downtrodden, a little bit sure this show will also be a bomb. I am focusing on hope, though, and on remembering that people like my paintings, and people buy my paintings, and two weak shows in a row is an anomaly. Coach Joe would tell me to look at the year as a whole, and not to focus on one or two (or three) shows, and as a whole, it's been a good show season. Even so, I feel more than a little dread about this weekend. 

But I will square my shoulders and raise my chin and head into this show with faith and hope intact. 

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RECENTLY, A PAINTING of mine was included in a nice online group exhibit, all about nature. It's on a cool and very helpful business -of-art website, Artsy Shark. You can check out the exhibit by clicking here. 

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Dog of the Day

Doc and Lulu were neutered on Tuesday.  Much to my surprise, Doc - solemn, serious, sensitive - took his operation in stride. If he weren't wearing a collar, you'd never know anything had happened to him. But Lulu, who is full of light and love and sunshine, is miserably unhappy. She hates the cone, can't figure out how to do anything while wearing it, she's itchy and unhappy and flinging her body around in her little crate. I feel terrible for her. 

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A Final Thought

"If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams." 

- Yann Martel, "Life of Pi"

Swirling Sunflowers

Swirling Sunflowers

Oil on canvas, 20x20

Please click here to email me for price and availability

The Workhouse Arts show in Lorton, VA, starts in just a few hours. I'm a little late posting this, mainly because I was just too exhausted after setting up in 93 degree heat. Yow. I thought summer had ended! There are no trees in the yard at the former prison, but in spite of that, it is a lovely spot, and the show looks fantastic. It's the second year of the show, and the temperature is supposed to be deep in the 90s, at least today, and so - who knows? But then again, who ever knows?  In the former prison, which has been totally and beautifully renovated, there are artist studios, and I'm hoping to check them out during the weekend. Next weekend, I'll be in Durham, NC, at the Centerfest show. Then I head west for the Big Skies Painting trip! Sponsorships are still available....

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Dogs of the Day

Yup, it's our dogs, or most of them, gathered at the gate to say goodbye! 

And that's Peter, also saying so long.

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A Final Thought

"We have art in order not to die of truth."

- Friedrich Nietzsche