Shapleigh, Maine

I'VE HAD MYSELF a busy time lately, and it's been fun! The Mystic Outdoor Art Festival was a success - and if you were a part of making it a success, thank you.                                                                                                                                Before and after, I spent time with friends and family, staying at our daughter's house in Rhode Island (with a pool!) and during a brief trip to Maine. I was able to drive up to Maine on one day, and back the next.                                                                                                                                              Crazy, a little, but it let me spend time with my aunt and uncle, two sets of cousins and their families (one, whom I rarely see, lives in St. Paul), my brother and his wife and daughter, and my friend Heather, (below) who came with me on one of my very first painting trips.                                                                                                                                          It was a whirlwind - and it was fun! We lived in Maine on and off for 10 years, and while it was a tough, and often depressing place to live, there was much I loved about it, including the landscape. I rejoiced that I had time to squeeze out a couple paintings, including this one, at left,  of a lake in Shapleigh, Maine.                                                       

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Dog of the Day

 It's Annie, the bulldog who lives with my brother Rand Cooper, his wife Molly and their teenager, Larkin. And of course, Archie, who, I believe, thinks Annie is a little nuts. She clearly enjoyed her tutu T-shirt. And why not? It made her so special!

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A Final Thought

"Art should be an oasis: a place or refuge from the hardness of life." 

- Fernando Botero

Harvest Home

Harvest Home

Oil on canvas, 8x24

sold

I taught a palette-knife painting class on Sunday at the Wallkill River School in Montgomery, N.Y. I was a little nervous about it, since I'd never taught one, but it was an absolute delight. 

It was a small class, and everyone had time and space to experiment with the knife, and I had time to make this painting. It's a scene I have painted before, in Harpswell, Maine, and is a scene I am likely to paint again. I love the wheatfield, the brillliant white house nestled in the trees, and the glimpse of lawn you can see right around the house. 

While I was at the school, I met one of the women who bought "Range Rovers," one of the very large cow paintings that sold during my March show there. She was just wonderful, and happy as could be with the painting, and told me the story of how the two big cow paintings sold. 

Gail, who bought "Range Rovers," works at the school on Sundays. From the desk where she sits, she could see the painting, and she really loved it. 

A couple from Manhattan came into the school one Sunday during the show, and Gail, bless her, gave them a tour of the show, which was work by Shawn Dell Joyce and myself. Gail told the woman that she was thinking of buying "Range Rovers." 

The woman, who has a second home in the area and is a big supporter of the school, turned to Gail and said, "If you buy that one, I'll buy the other one." 

And so the deal was struck! Then, just to make things happier for all concerned, the man who was with the woman bought one of my paintings, too. 

Sunset in Maine

Sunset on the Ridge 
Oil on canvas, 24x24
sold

Today, some odds and ends. First, this painting. I made it from a photograph I took while I was in Maine this summer. It's a field on Hio Ridge Road, where my aunt and uncle live. The sunset was so amazing, I nearly drove off the road. In real life, it was even more dramatic than this painting - which is more dramatic in real life than on the screen. Maybe I do need a better camera.

My friend Lori Rembetski, a wonderful sculptor and delightful person, is having a show in November at the Lighthouse Gallery on Long Hill Road in Groton, Conn. Lori makes charming and character-filled sculptures of dogs. They're small, from a few inches high to perhaps 10 inches, and they are gestural and full of life and fun. The opening reception is Friday, Nov. 6, from 5-7 p.m., at the gallery. If you're in the area, come!

My friend Judy Beisler, a wonderful photographer and delightful person, tells me that on that same night, at the Unitarian Universalist Church in New London, the folk group The Work of the Weavers will perform. I don't remember just when the show starts, but Judy told me it would be possible to go from the Lighthouse Gallery opening to the show, and make it in plenty of time.

I probably won't be able to do that, though, since I'll be teaching a workshop at the Wallkill River School on Saturday, Nov. 7, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., on painting pets. If you're anywhere near Montgomery, N.Y., there's plenty of space in the workshop. Call the school and sign up!

Peter found out that those ladybugs I wrote about the other day were imported by New Jersey as a way to rid the state of a particular insect that eats and kills hemlock trees. The ladybugs are otherwise harmless, but wherever they come from, they spend the winters in white cliffs. So when they're swarming over our light-gray house and white doors and windows, they're just a little confused about their winter homes.

I've spent a fair amount of time this past week working on my portfolio, in preparation for approaching galleries near and far. If anyone reading has any suggestions of active galleries where my work would fit, please let me know!

And thank you for reading.

Coasting

Harpswell Neck. Oil on canvas, 12x36.

I had the great good fortune, at the Sun Journal in Maine, to have Carol Coultas as my boss. At the time, Carol was the managing editor of the paper. Later, she took the unusual but completely understandable step of leaving management to become a business reporter. Recently, she left the Sun Journal all together, after working there for more than 20 years, to become the editor of MaineBiz, a business publication based in Portland. This is an interesting woman!

I saw her about a year ago, and she told me that a neighbor had died and left her, among other things, a bunch of frames. And she wanted to give them to me! Yippee!

So on this visit, I got to see Carol, and Kathryn Skelton, a friend and former reporter, in Portland last week, before Carol left for a vacation in Canada with her parents. She gave me directions to her house, and I arrived there one morning last week, woke her 18-year-old son, collected the frames and set out to explore Harpswell, where Carol lives.

It is just amazingly beautiful! It's a spit of land that sticks out into Casco Bay, in the Gulf of Maine. At the end of Harpswell, you can see some islands - I know Orr's Island and Bailey Island are close to Harpswell, but no one I spoke with as I painted could tell me exactly what I was painting.

I had a lovely morning, taking in beautiful Harpswell, and painting in the sun and the wind. I had a delicious scallop dinner, too. What day wouldn't be great with something like that in the middle? So thanks to Carol, for the frames and for the impetus to visit Harpswell.

All that said, though, I've worked on this painting here at home, but I'm still not thrilled with it. I think it's too symmetrical - and I didn't achieve the sense of scale that I was trying for. But I have the painting, and plenty of pictures, and so I can - and will - have another go at it.

Thanks for reading!

Day of Day Lillies

Day of Day Lilies
Oil on canvas, 18x36,

Call me at 860-442-0246 or email me

if you are interested in buying this painting

This visit to Maine brought me back to the land, and it also brought me back to my friends.

I worked as the regional editor for the Lewiston Sun Journal. My main office was in Norway, and I ran reporters in Rumford and Farmington, as well. I had a far-flung and very hard-working crew that really knew the territory, and understood what made news in their towns.

I got to be friends with all of them, but especially, of course, with the folks and freelancers in the Norway office. And this trip, I got to see almost all of them, as well as my former boss, and another of my former reporters with whom I share a birthday and a continuing friendship.

These reunions brought me back to myself in ways I hadn't expected. They unwrapped parts of me that I'd treasured and stored and forgotten, and I rejoice in these gifts and the people who brought them back to me, or, I guess, brought me back to them.

I made this painting during a wonderful day spent with Mary Ann Guilford, the office manager in Norway. We visited DeerWood Farm and Gardens, and met Beverly and Brian Hendricks, the owners, who were happy to let us paint there.

It's an amazing and gorgeous place, a landscape painted with flowers. Mary Ann and I spent hours there, painting and photographing and chatting with Beverly. I'd hoped to get back and paint there again, but I never made it.

I've fooled with this painting over and over in Photoshop, and still can't manage to transmit it with the depth and brilliance of color it has. It's hanging right now in the Denmark Arts Center, in Denmark, Maine, so if you're in Maine, and you're interested in seeing or buying it, take a drive! The DAC is open weekends, or by appointment - check out the center's website.

If this painting doesn't sell in Maine, it will be at the Wallkill River School Gallery in Montgomery, N.Y., for the month of September. I have a show there with the talented painter, George Hayes; the opening reception is 5-7 p.m. on Sept. 12, auspicious, as it is my late mother's birthday.

Home Away from Home

Breezy Hill. Oil on canvas, 20x20
please contact me for price and shipping/delivery info

I loved living in Maine, and I loved being back in Maine this past week. And while the coast of Maine is wonderful, it's inland Maine that calls to me.

It's a tough place to live. Jobs are few, and pay is low. Stuff is surprisingly expensive, and shopkeepers surprisingly surly. Everything is far from everything else. My uncle says it takes two and a half hours to get anywhere - and while that might be an exaggeration, I'd put the stress on "might."

Still, there's a raw, strong beauty in western Maine that pulls hard on my heart. The wind blows in big gusts down from the mountains. The shadows of the forests spill easily onto the fields - and before you know it, nature takes over, all but erasing man's work. Deep in the woods, far beyond houses or roads, stone walls mark long-gone clearings, fields grown over ages ago.

Something in all this resonates in me. Something in the wildness, the far-flung distances, the houses that need work or that shine with it. Something in the dusty towns, the cottage industries, the pot-holed roads. Something in the abundant black-eyed susans, the quiet forest floors, the blue pine trees ripped ragged by the wind - Something hard and strong and beautiful.

It was good to be back in Maine. It felt like going home.

Birches

Birches
Oil on stretched canvas, 16x20

Call me at 860-442-0246 or email me

if you are interested in buying this painting

In college, I took a wonderful class on Robert Frost, with Guy Rotella, a teacher whose insights and mentoring changed me, my outlook and in the end, changed my life, too. I thought of him, and of Frost as I painted this, and when I was able to get on line, here at the Center Lovell Inn (there's not a lot of wi-fi in western Maine), I found the lines that had pulsed inside my head:

These are the closing lines of the Frost poem, "Birches":

I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Talkin' Bout My Generation

Ferns
Oil on stretched canvas, 12x16

Call me at 860-442-0246 or email me

if you are interested in buying this painting

I'm struck, as I always am, in snowy parts of New England, by how the old houses are so close to the road. It makes sense, really, considering horses and carriages and mountains, and mountains of snow - but what a sign of how our lives have changed!

These days, no one would build a rural house whose front stood 10 feet from the edge of the asphalt.

The house I painted here is newer, and sits in a ways from Route 93. But I was painting on the edge of the road, only feet from a gorgeous, huge, antique farmhouse. It was at the top of a hill so steep and long that the van shifted into low to climb it.

I think of that house on that hill in the winter, 200 years ago, and I think that our ancestors were far tougher and far braver than we are.

Where is the Quiet?

Along the Ridge. Oil on canvas, 16x20. Sold.

My friend Joyce White met me at the Denmark Arts Center today, to catch up and see my paintings. It was a joyo to spend time with Joyce. She was a freelancer at the Sun Journal when I was the bureau chief there. She'd retired from a job in Massachusetts somewhere, and was here working on the second part of her life - and she was interested in everything.

She had a keen insight into my paintings. She liked them - liked them a lot - and also noticed that, for the most part, they are not quiet. And they aren't. They are boisterous, energetic, even loud paintings - and that's fine. But I like the idea of making some quiet, serene paintings - and so we shall see. It's hard for me to restrain myself - and mostly, I don't want to. But I'd like to make some quiet paintings to round out my portfolio. And I have some ideas.

Back Roads of Maine

Fryeburg Farm. Oil on canvas, 16x20, sold

Everyone has their favorite roads, and they all ask if I'd like to know. Sure! I'm always looking for a native's favorite views.

My aunt and uncle sent me on Route 113, from Denmark to Fryeburg and beyond. There are some lovely farms and farmhouses along this road, for sure, but they were not as plentiful as I'd hoped. Still, I found this one, and with a good place to pull off. It was great to be in the mountains again, too.

I wonder about what makes someone love a particular road. For me, I know, it is sometimes the road itself - the driving, really. Some roads are just fun to drive, and that's that. But I think that more often, there is one view on a road that makes that road special. I could hunt all day and not see that one sight. Sometimes, I think, you just have to see it with yourown eyes.

In the Thick of It

Two paintings of fog. Top, "Mist," oil on canvas, 9x12, sold. Bottom, "6:15 This Morning," oil on canvas, 8x10, sold

The mornings I've been here, I've awakened to a white world outside the screens of the lake house.

A deep fog has fallen over the mountain across the lake both mornings, blurring the outlines of the trees, and erasing the presence of the mountain behind them.

It's hard to paint fog - or at least, it's hard for me. I'm sure there's some shortcut to painting fog. All I know is that I've been experimenting, finding some stuff that works and some that doesn't. The painting at the top is the one I like better. I made the painting first - and it was a good painting of a deep, shadowed, piney forest. Then I scraped the paint off, and went back over the ghost image with some bluish-white paint.

It's incredibly liberating to scrape off what you've just painted - and know that that's part of the process.

So painters, is there a known way to paint fog in plein air? I'd love to know!

Good to be Back

The Lake House. Oil on canvas, 6x12. Sold

I brought canvases and matching frames with me, so I can make paintings and then hang them in the Denmark Arts Center. I've made a big sign - Fresh Paintings! Get 'em while they're wet! and I told everyone at the opening to come on back - that there would be new paintings to see.

I'm enjoying painting here. Looking at the landscapes, being in the landscapes, brings me back to the years when we lived here. Sure, there were tough times, tough enough so that, in the end, we moved away. But this is a beautiful place, wild and, for the most part, unspoiled. It's wonderful to be back here, and even more wonderful to be painting here.

At the Lake House

View From the Lake House, oil on canvas, 12x16, sold.

I'm in Bridgton, Maine, at the moment, sitting in the laundromat, the one place in town with a wi-fi connection. Actually, a little cafe on Main Street has a connection, but it was closing to cater a dinner, and couldn't help me - but a nice woman in the cafe alerted me to the laundromat, and the women here said no problem - they didn't care that I didn't have dirty clothes!

I'm staying at the lake house owned by my aunt and uncle. Their house, a farmhouse built in 1863, sits in fields at the top of a big hill. The lake house is at the bottom, on Moose Pond. It's a lovely little cabin, with wood floors and wood ceilings, and a giant screened porch that overlooks a ferny slope which runs down to the lake.

At night, it's absolutely quiet there, except for the haunting calls of the loons. There are no traffic noises, no people noises, nothing. There's no television in the cabin, and there's not a phone, though my cell phone works from two places in the house, if there are no clouds.

It's a joy to have such a calm and serene place to stay. It's a little like heaven.