Sunflowers - and Hnngghhh!

Kari's Sunflowers

Oil on canvas, 10x10

Commission

Peter came home the other day laughing. He'd gone to the vegetable stand down the road and bought tomatoes and something else, some kind of sweet potato that he'd never seen before. 

He asked the person selling the veggies what it was, and she said, "Hnnggh!" 

"What is it?" Peter said. "Pardon?"

"Hnngghh!" she said. 

And my dear husband, who pretty clearly was never going to understand what that woman was saying, just gave up and bought the hnngghh, two of them, actually. He brought them home, and cooked them, and they were delicious. 

So today, I talked to my friend Pat, who's lived here all her life - so far. 

She said that hngghh are haymen, an Eastern Shore delicacy. And there's apparently a very distinct way to treat, cook and enjoy the haymen. I took a video of Pat explaining. Click here to see it on YouTube.

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On the Easel

It's a commission, 24x72, and I'm really excited about it!

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Dog of the Day

Hahahaha! Aren't goats wonderful and STRANGE? 

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

Carrot

Carrot

Oil on canvas, 12x12

Commission

Another beautiful dog! I absolutely love that in doing all this painting, I have the chance to make portraits of people's beloved pets.

Carrot, whom I've had the great fortune to meet, was a rescue, and it showed, in the early photos of her. She is a serious dog, still, and probably always will be, but she's come miles from how she looked when she arrived at her forever home.

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I THINK THAT maybe, in another life, I was a dog.

I'm pretty happy most of the time, and pretty trusting. I love to eat and sleep. I protect my home and family and friends fiercely.

And I have that dog thing that George Carlin described as believing that whatever is happening at the moment is going to go on... forever! Sad? Gonna be sad forever. Hungry? Gonna be hungry forever. Joyous? Yup - forever.

And I DO love to stick my head out the window when I drive.

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I DROVE TO Virginia Beach today - the Big City! Here are a couple scenes I saw on my way...

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Dog of the Day

Here are Gypsy and Shadow, Heather and Joe's beautiful dog and cat. 

They have special people in their hearts today - and every day. 

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

Chloe and Roxie - and a Successful Art/Yard Sale

 Chloe and Roxie, both 12x12 commissions, live together and are the best of friends. 

Want a painting of your pet? Check the pet-portrait page on Jacobson Arts, 

or drop me an email at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com. 

I've been really enjoying my time here in Wachapreague. It's a pleasure to work my way through commissions that have been waiting for me, and to have the time to go out in this beautiful fall weather and paint this landscape that I love. 

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MY DAILY PAINTWORKS auctions end Tuesday at 8 p.m. Two 10x10 paintings are up for sale. 

Click here to bid on October Afternoon (minimum bid $85) and here to bid on "Autumn's Best of Cheer," which currently has a $90 bid.  You can also click on the Daily Paintworks auction icon just to the right of this blog post! 

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THIS PAST WEEKEND,  Wachapreague held the first of what it hopes will be the annual yard sale and art show. The plan at first was that Peter would do the yard sale and I would set my art up in the town park, but in the end, I set up my art in the driveway, along with the yard sale, and that was fine. Three paintings sold - one a new one, and two old ones on deep discount - and that's better than I did at some shows this summer. On top of that, we transferred a tremendous amount of our junk to other people. And best of all, we met lots of neighbors. 

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Dog of the Day

This is Tamara Gonda's old girl, Flossie. These days, Flossie, who is 14,

 is having trouble getting up and down (who isn't?). But she loves her walks, 

and you can tell from looking at her that she's a wonderful old dog. 

Miss You Already, Lou Reed

Miss You Already, Lou Reed

Oil on canvas, 10x10

sold

Lou Reed has died, and I find myself darkly, deeply sad.

I always loved the guy, for what he did, what he said, what he meant. Lots of his songs didn't really do it for me, but his music, in general, always did, if that makes any sense. I could tell a Lou Reed song a mile away - and that's something I can't say for a lot of musicians.

Far as I could tell, Lou Reed never wanted to be anything other than Lou Reed. He never seemed to want to be cute, or a star, or commercial. He wanted to be himself, and to express himself, and if the world didn't like it, too bad.

Brian Eno said that though the first Velvet Underground album only sold 30,000 copies, "everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band." You can count me in that 30,000. My little band, Petite Mal, couldn't have been more unlike any of Lou Reed's bands - except that, in its soul, it was. We never wanted to be anything but what we were, good, bad or indifferent.

Peter and I had the good fortune to see Lou Reed not so many years ago, in Kingston, NY. We were in the second or third row, and Reed gave a great performance. He was weathered, and yes, he was dark, but he had that rock and roll gleam in his eye, and he sang his heart and his soul, and you just knew he'd lived the way he wanted to live.

Far as I could tell, Lou Reed tried pretty much everything that crossed his path, and he was unapologetic about all of it. Everything he did, everything he took, everything he sampled colored his life and his music. And in the end, that's what got him. His liver gave out, and complications from the transplant took his life today, Oct. 27, 2013.

The world is just not as good a place without Lou Reed in it. 

Autumn's Best of Cheer - and Pull Right in to the Drink-N-Drive

Autumn's Best of Cheer

Oil on canvas, 10x10

I know that autumn is inevitable, but every year, it excites me. And now that I paint, it excites me even more. But it's more than the colors in the fields and in the trees. It's the pleasure of kicking through fallen, drying leaves; the thrilling snap of a frosty morning on my cheeks and in my nose; the way the stars gleam sharp and brilliant in these clear and chilly nights. 

But painting the fall is the best, and this scene is sort of the quintessential autumn painting for me. It's a study for a larger painting I am doing as a commission. And for anyone living in the mid-Hudson Valley, yes, it does look familiar. It's on Route 17A, on the left as you're heading into Florida. 

I took the title of the painting from a poem by Helen Hunt Jackson. You can click here to read the entire poem; the stanza I lifted the title from is right here: 

By all these lovely tokens

September days are here,

With summer's best of weather,

And autumn's best of cheer.

This painting and another new painting are up for auction at Daily Paintworks. The opening bid on each is $90.

You can see my gallery and place bids by clicking here: http://www.dailypaintworks.com/Artists/carrie-jacobson-4216 - or by clicking on the Daily Paintworks icon on the right-hand side of the blog here!

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HERE'S A GREAT knife-holder dreamed up by my friend Heather MacLeod. Isn't it fun? Check out more of her stuff at her website, heathermacleod-art.com

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HEATHER ALSO SENT this photo, which absolutely made me howl. When we went to Canada together on a painting trip (see my blog entries from June 2010), we saw a series of mailboxes mounted on lawnmowers. After a while, we realized that they were probably the mailboxes of people who lived in the area in the summer, and were tired of putting their mailboxes back up after they'd been knocked over by the winter plows. And the other day, Heather saw a similar mailbox arrangement somewhere in Maine!

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YES. IT'S A liquor store IN a gas station. Peter calls it the Drink 'n' Drive.

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Dog of the Day 

I don't know his hame, but he was hanging around Willis Wharf the other afternoon, and he was soaking wet, and he was having about as good a time as a dog can have.

October Afternoon - and Horrible-Looking Bug

October Afternoon

Oil on canvas, 10x10

sold

These autumn days are great for painting - and great for living,  too. For reasons I don't understand, the light gathers up a clear, round quality that, to my eyes, enriches all the colors, all the shapes, all the shadows of the earth. 

The wind blows cool and crisp through the sun-warmed afternoons, and on Virginia's Eastern Shore, the world turns yellow and bronze and gold. Here and there, I see a crimson tree, a flare of orange in a pine-green wood - the merest whisper of New England's loud October voice. 

Yesterday, Jojo and I spent pretty much the whole day in the studio, painting. I'm addressing a lovely series of commissions, and it is a joy to be able to paint dogs and cats and landscapes with the doors open, the October breeze blowing through, and my faithful companion at my side. 

This painting and another new one are on auction at Daily Paintworks. To see my gallery, click on the icon on the right of this posting, or click here: http://www.dailypaintworks.com/Artists/carrie-jacobson-4216.

The auctions end on Monday at 8 p.m. 

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WHILE JOJO HAS protected me from pirates, vandals and marauders, she has clearly not kept me safe from huge, disgusting bugs, as you can see below:

I don't know WHAT this thing is, but it was about 3 inches from stem to stern, prehistoric looking, and pretty darn frightening. However, it seemed harmless enough. I put an empty paper towel roll in front of it, and it climbed aboard, and then happily (?) climbed onto a leaf outside - far away from the studio. 

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Dog of the Day

I met Pam at the Stockley Gardens show in Norfolk in the spring. It was a good show for me, and lots of fun. Between then and now, Pam and her fam got Pemba. She's a golden doodle, and Pam says Pemba will fetch sticks all day from the Elizabeth River - no matter how chilly the day. 

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

Rio!

Rio

Oil on canvas, 12x12

commission

Years ago, a lifetime ago, I had the chance to become the editor of The Carroll County Times in Westminster, MD. I'd wanted to be the editor since I'd started in newspaper 10 years earlier, and I'd worked hard to make it happen.

So I left a great job - copy desk chief of The Virginian-Pilot, in Norfolk, VA - and took the leap.

It quickly became dispiritingly clear that running a newsroom was just not for me. It was a terrible fit with my personality. And the publisher of the Carroll County Times made being the editor there an even worse fit.

But I loved my editors and my staff, and one of the people at the top of that list was Toni Guagenti, a vivacious, energetic reporter who strove to do her best, every story, every time. She was smart and kind and funny. She loved dogs. And she extended a hand of friendship to me during what was a very, very tough stretch of life.

In time, Toni and I both left Carroll County. After a brief stay at the Washington Times, she was hired by The Virginian-Pilot, where she worked until relatively recently, when a round of layoffs eliminated her position.

She freelances in Hampton Roads now, and we have been in touch since I moved to Wachapreague last year. And when a dear friend of hers, Corinne, lost her beloved cat this summer, Toni got the two of us together.

On Saturday, Toni and Corinne came to Wachapreague to collect the painting of Rio, and to take me out. We had a great time, talking and laughing, catching up, getting to know each other - and having a delicious lunch at The Island House, to boot!

Today, the morning dawned crisp and clear, with a cool autumn wind blowing in from the north.

Winter is coming, with its gray days and early sunsets. But as I write this, I'm cooking homefries with lots of onions, the sun is out and the day is full of promise. Peter is in the other room, tying flies and planning his day's fishing. I'm listening to the dogs bark and feeling lucky to have a family I love, friends new and old, and people in my life who enrich me spiritually, challenge me intellectually and help me live my dreams.

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ONE OF THOSE people is Lori Chozik, who owns Center Framing & Art in West Hartford Center, CT. My brother introduced me to Lori, and she was the first gallery owner to want to represent me. On Friday, she hung a whole bunch of my paintings in the window.

I think it looks great! If you're in or near West Hartford Center, take a stroll by, and poke your nose in the gallery and say hello.

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AS FOR THE houses or coffee cups question, opinions are just about evenly split, with some folks offering different ideas (dogs, trees)... and most people saying just do something that will amuse me. So I am still trying things. And still open to ideas!

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Dog of the Day

This dog and her people were dining on the deck at the Island House on Saturday.