Home on the range

Range Cattle. Oil on cradled gessoboard panel, 6x12. Sold

I was driving through a Wyoming prairie when this herd of cattle just moseyed across the road. Far as they were concerned, I was in their territory, not vice versa. They got to the other side of the road and just gathered there, eating grass and staring - unnervingly - at me. It was noon, and the sun shone on their backs and cast deep shadows on their rich, thick coats. I went up the road a ways, scared a small herd of antelope, then turned around. These cows stared at me the whole time.

I am posting early, so I can bring a piece to Hygienic XXX, the wildest free-for-all I've ever seen in the art world.

For those of you who don't know about it (that would be anyone living outside the eastern Connecticut/southwestern Rhode Island area, probably), this annual show invites anyone and everyone to enter one piece of art. And baby, if you say it's art, it's art. There's no jury, there's no censorship. The only limit is the amount of space on the walls.

I entered 20 years ago. Made a collage out of stuff I'd found on the streets. It was pretty cool, with bits of wire and mirror and shiny glass, twists of rope, and twigs and heaven only knows what else. I remember going to the show (it opens on the same night you bring your piece) and being amazed at the range of art. From pure and utter junk to soaring, amazing sculpture and painting to fully pornographic pieces, wow, it was all there.

And so, I'd better get going. It's 8:26, and honestly, I've probably dawdled around so long that all the spots are already taken. If so, oh, well. There's always next year.

Winter, winter burning bright

January, Harkness. Oil on stretched canvas, 10x20

The wind tore over Long Island Sound and ran across the frozen lawns of Harkness the afternoon I painted this. It felt impossible that the snow-covered picnic tables ever would welcome families wearing shorts and eating potato salad and complaining about the heat, but they will, and soon.

One of the great pleasures of moving back home is going to the places that I loved and haunted growing up. Harkness is one of them. We went there as a family, when we were kids, and we played hide and seek in the beautiful Victorian gardens. Sat on the stone benches on the gazebo, under trellised grapes, and talked and laughed, surrounded by box hedges releasing their peppery scent into the warm dusk.

I went there as a teenager, with friends and boyfriends, and we hid and talked and made out under the arching limbs of the copper beech trees, wider around than we could reach our arms. In one of the best pictures ever taken of me, I am swinging by my knees from one of those branches, my long, long hair flying out behind me. David Desiderato took that one.

Harkness saw hard times then, but we kept coming. The gardens fell into disarray. The buildings seemed to slump. My parents divorced, and still, we came to Harkness, for Labor Day, and Mom's birthday, and picnic dinners by the water.

One of Mom's last birthdays, we went to Harkness. We brought Chinese food, and we laughed and talked, and my siblings' children were there, a new generation.

Mom is gone now, but every time I visit Harkness, I think of her. She belonged to a garden club at one time, and I remember watching her arrange flowers for a competition inside the mansion. She knew the names of the flowers that grew in the gardens, and she knew our secret spots, and loved the open plains and the beach and the Sound beyond. It was a special place for her, and so, it will always be a special place for all of us.

Thanks for reading.

Dream a little dream

Victorian Castle, oil on canvas paper

Well, another experiment, courtesy of the Different Strokes challenge (http://differentstrokesfromdifferentfolks.blogspot.com). The challenge was to paint a Victorian townhouse, in San Francisco, I think.

I'm not that much a one for architecture, at least not detailed architecture, and so I just began fooling around. Got past my first idea, which was to paint the mother from "Psycho" in the upper window... and ended up with a castle at sunrise/sunset.

Sure, one week soon, I will paint the challenge straight. But for the time being, I'm enjoying taking these challenges and making them into something that really challenges me.

I am looking forward to spring. The air has grown more clear, and the sunshine, warmer, more yellow. But there's snow and now ice everywhere, and it's not lovely, not here at least. Maybe I need to go to Maine or Vermont and just soak myself in snow and paint landscapes that are supposed to be locked in snow in January.

Chugging along

Chugging Along. Oil on cradled gessoboard, 6x12

Spent yesterday on the couch, flattened by something, who knows what. At first, I thought it was just too much exercise and too little sleep, but as the day wore on, the bad sensations moved around in my body and I realized I've caught something. Easy enough to do, I guess.

Today, it's snowing again, and I'm feeling a little better, but still not up to snuff. So I will see if I can do some more sleeping, and get back on my feet.

I nearly scraped this little painting off, and I still might, but I thought I'd post it. The car makes me think of one my mother used to have.

Thanks for reading!

Remembering Joe Strummer

Misquamicut Parking Lot. Oil on stretched canvas, 16x20

Misquamicut was cold and nearly deserted when I made this painting. A storm was rolling in, and as the afternoon wore on, the clouds thickened over the ocean but the sun shone beneath them - for a while. At the other end of the lot, a man watched and coached as a youth rode a four-wheeler. They were so far away and the wind was so loud, I couldn't hear a sound.

This painting is another effort to get specific and put people in my landscapes. Not all the time, no - for me, the very emptiness of the landscape attracts me. I see myself in it, and see all the possibilities. A horizon draws me like almost nothing else. It pulls at my curious self, at my optimistic self, at my courageous self. I wonder what's over that rise, and believe that it's something better, and often, I am brave enough to go and look.

The whole ethos of discovery pushes me hard - and tends to keep people out of my landscapes. But seeing them, drawing them, painting them, allowing them in - that's good, too. And different. And for me, hard.

Sleepless last night, I watched most of a documentary on Joe Strummer, guitarist and singer of The Clash, and one of the heroes of my past. I had forgotten how stirring the band's music and lyrics are, and what a thrill it was to hear them and see them for the first time. It felt like the world was on fire when they played, that all things were possible, and political change was practically as available as desire.

The Clash made it big, and collapsed of its own weight, and I lost track of them, of Strummer, of all of that. He died in 2002, of a congenital heart problem. Laid down on his couch and never got up.

The movie said lots of things to me, but one thing that sticks was something Strummer believed: No input, no output.

It's important for me to remember that, and go looking for new things, new challenges.

Thanks for reading!

For more, see jacobson-arts.com

Crandall Field, Take One

Crandall Field. Oil on stretched canvas, 10x30, sold

In lovely Ashaway, R.I., "Crandall" is a big name. The Crandall family owns Ashaway Line & Twine (it's so rare and lovely to have a company name that rhymes, isn't it?). And the Crandall family once owned Crandall Field, a gorgeous open space that stretches along Route 3 for acres and acres.

On almost any day, you'll see people playing on Crandall Field. Playing and running, chasing their dogs, walking hand in hand, flying radio-controlled airplanes, just enjoying the outdoors. Across Route 3, and set off by the open space of Crandall Field, churches and big, lovely New England houses line the road.

My husband Peter grew up in Ashaway, and he has lots of memories of all sorts of goings on there. Some involved Crandall Field, or the land or water around the Line & Twine, but most involved various nefarious acts of juvenile delinquency in the cemetery and the woods on Cemetary Lane (yes, Ashaway spelled the street name incorrectly until a few years ago).

It was cold and spitting snow on the day I made this painting, and for once, there was no one in Crandall Field. But I went back, and in the spirit of painting landscapes with people in them, am working on another Crandall Field piece with all sorts of activity.

Second verse

Tulips II. Oil on masonite panel, 8x8. Sold

I took another stab at the tulips. This time, I used a palette knife for most of the work on the flowers. The mug, I did with a brush. I like the mug, and the way the light shines through the vase and reflects on the floor. But I'm really looking to going outside again!