Uncloudy Day

Uncloudy Day

Oil on deep black canvas, 36x36

Please click here to email me for price and availability

The smell of new-mown grass blew sharp and sweet on the wind yesterday, and this morning, the dark scent of the marsh spreads softly in the crisp dawn air. Dandelions brighten our lawn, and around town, forsythia seems to explode in bursts of brilliance, while pink and white trees trail petals like lace on their limbs and on the ground below. 

People are working on their boats, cleaning and shining and polishing, and we've heard that flounder are already running. Piles of sticks and leaves and brush and pinecones stand on lawns, and at the edges of the roads, and JD and John will pick them up, maybe this week, or maybe next, depending on when they have the time, and room in the ancient town truck. 

Bluebirds are building a nest at Pat's house, and the laughing gulls are here already, cackling away. Our azaleas are budding scarlet. I am hopeful that my lilac bush might bloom this year for the first time. 

I'm loving painting flowers, and coming alive as spring comes to the Eastern Shore. 

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Stuff I've Seen

It's a little hard to make this out, but it is a giant sculpture of a road runner, in Las Cruces, NM. It must be 40 or 50 feet long! This was as close as I could get. 

If you see a cool, or strange, or heart-warming sight, and would like to share it with readers of The Accidental Artist, please send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com! 

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Dog of the Day

It's Batty, who lives with Blanco and Shadow, and 

my friend SaraBeth, in Tucson. She's a sweetie! 

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A Final Thought

"Art is to console those who are broken by life." 

- Vincent Van Gogh

On the Fly

On the Fly

Oil on canvas, 12x36

Please click here to email me for price and availability

Peter and I used to fly-fish regularly, and as I made this painting, I remembered how much I miss it. The Eastern Shore isn't really the place for fly-fishing, though Peter does trek out on the mudflats to fly-fish. Maybe I will try that one day, but I think a better idea is to take a drive to a place with a river like the one I painted.

This month, we will have been married 29 years. We still do lots of the things together that we used to do, and there are new things we do together, too. We've left some things behind, as well, and both of us have taken on new pursuits. I think you grow in a marriage with all the decisions you make, and that it's as important to try some new things as to sustain some of the old things.

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Stuff I've Seen

So, in the spirit of trying new things, I'm trying a new look for the blog. What do you think?

I kind of like it, but I fear that some good information (my show schedule, for instance) is a little hidden in the menu box at the top left.

I'd appreciate any feedback from you!

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Dog of the Day

It's Muppet! Isn't he adorable? He belongs to my friends Dave and Maura, and lives happily with them and their nearly college-age kids in Nashville, TN. Peter and I went to their wedding, and it seems impossible that they have children headed for college. 

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A Final Thought

"The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity." 

- Walt Whitman

Never Give Up

Never Give Up

Oil on canvas, 14x14

Please click here to email me for price and delivery/shipping information

Long ago, I decided that when the voice - or God or the universe, or my Higher Power, or Nature, whatever works for you - tells me to go down a path, I should go, and not resist.

That's what has happened with me now, with three abstract pieces. I did not set out to make these, and all I can say is that they more or less made themselves. There's a part of me that's hoping this is a short, strange phase, and there's a part of me that's hoping this is the start of a journey of exploration.

Tomorrow, I am making a floral, and when that's done, I have a photo of some cows that I'm yearning to make into a painting, so I doubt that the abstracts are going to exclude any of my regular work - but I am excited about them, in the way you're sometimes excited about meeting a strange, interesting, new person.

Please let me know what you think.

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Stuff I've Seen

Well, the Paradise City show in Marlborough, Mass., was not a great show for me in terms of sales, though commissions from supporters and patrons certainly helped!

One man bought a biggish cow painting (above), and that was great. A collector bought a small floral and I forgot to take a Happy Buyer photo. I also forgot to take a Happy Buyer photo of one of my strongest collectors, who bought a floral painting. If you buy something from me and I seem to be forgetting the Happy Buyer photo, please remind me!

But shows are not only about sales, and this one was about friends. In addition to the collectors who bought from me, I was visited by my friend Heather, from Maine (in the selfie above left) and my friends from college, Penny and Amy (below). Andy, a friend of my brother's who has become a friend of mine over the years, also came to the show. That's him at the top, pointing to a postcard of my stuff.

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Dog of the Day

This little guy thought he was the size of the van, apparently, as he placed himself in front of the van a couple days ago and refused to let me go by. I rolled the window down and yelled at him and got a mouthful of barking for my trouble. 

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A Final Thought

"Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy - the joy 

of being Salvador Dali - and I ask myself in rapture: What wonderful things 

is this Salvador Dali going to accomplish today?" 

- Salvador Dali

You Go to My Heart

You Go to My Head

Oil on canvas, 18x18 

Please click here to contact me for information on price and availability

I've been heartened lately - in fact, more than heartened... excited, amazed, thrilled! - by the rapid sales of three recent paintings. I posted two on Facebook and sent one out in my most recent newsletter, and they all sold.  Two were florals much like the one above, and the third was the floral-focused landscape to the left. 

Peter, my dad and my stepmother all have been urging me to paint more florals, but I've resisted. I've loved the florals I'd made, but in a way, I felt I was at the end of the road with them, much like the paintings of food, the underground, birds, palm trees and on and on. I wasn't feeling challenged, wasn't feeling there was much to discover. The rush of adventure and experiment that I love so much, that is at the heart of my painting, seemed to have gone. 

That all has changed. And while I don't know specifically why, I think it is just because I've grown as a painter. The paintings I made on the Big Skies Painting Trip, and that sustained immersion into painting and solitude, led me to new places and taught me things I hadn't known I didn't know. 

And lo and behold, it's all spilled over into florals, in a happy confluence of what I'm enjoying painting, and what people seem to be wanting. 

I've found that if I paint simply hoping to sell, the paintings seem to lack some bit of life, some invitation to buy. They don't engage the viewer because, I think, they didn't truly engage me. I was painting with a purpose that should be secondary but had wiggled its way into being primary, and that tamped down the life of the pieces.

But I need to sell my art. I can't just paint them and keep them, or paint them and give them away. So I need to make paintings that sell. And in these florals, at least for now, I think I've found a strange and exhilarating balance of my delight and yours. 

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IF YOU CAN come to the Paradise City show in Marlborough, Mass., March 24-26, you can see these florals in person, and let me know what you think about them. Do they interest and inspire you? What do you like, and what don't you like? 

For more information about the show, and to get tickets for discounts on admission, please click here. 

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Stuff I've Seen

Here's Ted, who's shown up in my booth at shows from Michigan to California! He came to the show in Tubac, dressed to the nines, as always, and was as kind and upbeat as ever. 

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Dog of the Day 

It's Blanco, a huge sweetie, who lives with my friend SaraBeth in Tucson. 

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A Final Thought

"A writer - and, I believe, generally all persons - must think that whatever happsn to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art." 

- Jorge Luis Borges

Oxoboxo Morning

Oxoboxo Morning

Oil on canvas, 16x16

A few years ago, a friend and I started exchanging photos of the sky every day. It started because we'd found ourselves fascinated by the sky - her by the vastness of it, me by the colors and patterns, the stuff in the sky. 

We set out to exchange the photos for a year, but by now, it's three, going on four, I do believe. It's been a wonderful project, allowing me to see a part of her world, through her eyes, every day. In some ways, I've learned to see like her, a little bit. The project has helped me develop a new sense of vision, a new perspective. And it's been fun. Some days, the sky where she's been is exactly the same as the sky where I've been - even if we're half a world apart. Some days, the skies could hardly be more different - even if we're only a couple hundred miles apart. 

This is a painting I made from one of her photographs. I love the sense of dawning light in it, the bright colors in the sky and big dark humps of hills. And mostly, I like the touches of red at the tips of the tree branches, a promise that spring is indeed on the way. 

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I'LL HAVE THE "Oxoboxo Morning" painting, and some of my new florals, like the one to the left here, at the Paradise City show in Marlborough, MA, March 24-26. The show is in the Royal Plaza Trade Center. Marlborough is on I-495, about 45 minutes west of Boston, and 30 minutes east of Worcester. You can click here to get directions, and here to get a coupon for $2 off the admission fee. I'll be in Booth 404! I've done this show twice, and so I can tell you that it is a beautiful show, much like the one in Northampton, but smaller. And without the great Indian food... but I will get my fill at the show in May! 

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Stuff I've Seen

I saw this sign Vinton, Louisiana, on a beautiful road lined with Spanish-moss-hung live oaks. People were fishing on both sides of the road, a salt marsh on the east and 

a beautiful, fishy creek on the west. 

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Dog of the Day

The show in Englewood, Florida, was no good for selling art, but it was great for seeing dogs! 

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A Final Thought

"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, 

and on his own terms, not anyone else's." 

- J.D. Salinger, "Franny and Zooey"

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

Mesquite

Mesquite 

Oil on canvas, 16x16

Please click here to contact me for price and availability

It was a windy day in Arizona when I set out to paint, and the clouds were low and moving fast. It rained on and off throughout the day, but not while I was painting.

It felt good to paint again after a long, non-painting drive and a long, non-painting show. I'm not wild about the red canvas, and probably won't try it again, though who knows. I think the brightness of the canvas pulls your eye away from the painting. What do you think?

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Stuff I've Seen

I'd love to know the genesis of this sign... but I do know that it made me laugh, 

and think of Doc, one of the twins, who I am missing dreadfully. 

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Dog of the Day

This tough little guy was standing in the middle of the street in Deming, NM, 

determined to stop traffic, in spit of the fact that he's only 6 inches tall. 

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A Final Thought

"ARt never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it." 

- Flannery O'Connor