Mt. Humphreys

Mt. Humphreys / Oil on black canvas / 12x36

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to own this painting

ON THE WAY TO TUBAC, Carol and I decided to visit the Grand Canyon. It was out of our way, but not by much. Though we had been there a couple years ago, when Carol came out to do a show in Albuquerque with me, well, it is the Grand Canyon, so we decided to go again. 

We chose a scenic route, a road I've traveled before, that winds along 8,000-foot-high mountains and overlooks ones that are even higher, including Mount Humphreys, the tallest one in the painting. 

It was a cool morning when we pulled off the road by a yellow field to paint. The sun was shining, the air was thin and clear, and it was so quiet that I could hear a raven's wings flapping as he flew past me. 

I loved making this painting, and feel that it captures the beauty and serenity of the spot, and somehow, the enormity of it as well. 

When I finished, we headed on to the Grand Canyon, only to turn back, as there was a two-hour wait to get in. The Indian reservations are closed because of the covid, and the terrible toll it is taking on the Native American population. Because of that, one of the two wintertime gates into the park was closed, and all the visitors - and there were lots of them! - were funneled into one gate. 

So we left, and headed to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, and though it wasn't the Grand Canyon, it was a magical spot of color and wonder and incredible beauty. 

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Dog of the Day

I'VE SEEN THIS lovely, porky gal around town on nearly all my morning walks. She is a sweetie, and is usually off leash, so she trots her full-bellied trot up to me and greets me every day. 

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Thought for the Road

It Is Enough to Enter

the templar 

halls of museums, for 

example, or

the chamber of churches,

and admire
no more than the beauty

there, or
remember the graveness

of stone, or
whatever. You don't

have to do any
better. You don't have to 

understand
the liturgy or know history

to feel holy
in a gallery or presbytery. 

It is enough
to have come just so far. 

You need
not be opened any more

than does
a door, standing ajar. 

- Todd Boss

Duck Butts

Duck Butts / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping
Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you would like to buy this painting

I SEE THE DUCKS AND GEESE in Wachapreague in the winters, or anywhere, for that matter, diving into such frigid water, wet and small in the face of the biting, icy wind, and it seems impossible that they don't get cold, that they don't just die from exposure. 

I guess that's part of what it means to be a duck. It is part of the duck's world. And maybe they look at us and wonder - why don't those creatures walk so much - are they just too stupid to fly?  

 ***

A Thought for the Road

April is a Dog's Dream

april is a dog's dream

the soft grass is growing

the sweet breeze is blowing

the air all full of singing feels just right

so no excuses now

we're going to the park

to chase and charge and chew

and I will make you see

what spring is all about

- Marilyn Singer

Dry Wash

 Dry Wash / Oil on black canvas / 11x14 / $250 including shipping. 

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you would like to buy this painting! 

THE LANDSCAPE OF THE SOUTHWEST always inspires me. It challenges me, forcing me to use different colors, try different approaches, think and see and paint differently. It's exciting, and it's often difficult, and is always liberating - and surprising, too, which is a good thing for me. 

This painting, like so many of the paintings I've made that have turned out to be my favorites, is of a nothing sort of place. There's a teeny shopping plaza up the street, and to get from there to the road, on one side, you go over a bridge that crosses a dry wash. I looked up as we crossed it the other day, and the light was bouncing off the weedy shrubs, the mesquites, the dry pinkish soil, and I knew it was a painting. I could see the painting before it was finished. Before I even started it. 

It's a bridge I've crossed dozens, if not hundreds of times in the decade that I've been coming out here, and it is a landscape I've never noticed. One that I'd bet almost no one notices. But these places, these quotidian, unremarkable, characteristic spots, these are the ones that build a landscape, aren't they? Just as the unremarkable, daily, regular remarks and thoughts and hopes and dreams are what build our characters and personalities. 

Or at least, that's what I think this morning. 

***

Dog of the Day

I'VE BEEN WALKING around Tubac in the mornings, and making a special side trip to see the burros in a farm/ranch place at the east edge of town. You KNOW this will become a painting! 

***

A Thought for the Road

"Refuse to be average. Let your heart soar as it will." 

- A. W. Tozer

(Thanks to my sister for suggesting this header for the final area. It's the best so far. 

Do you have a different idea? I'm open to suggestions! )

Moriarty, NM

 Moriarty, NM / Oil on black canvas / 8x10  / $120 including shipping

sold! 

THE FIRST PAINTING of a trip always frightens me. I haven't painted for the days of driving, and usually also for many days before the trip, while I was getting ready. 

Painting came to me out of the blue, and so I often wonder if, one day, it will go away, as fully and as mysteriously as it appeared. The run-up to the first painting of a trip is inevitably filled with these unhelpful thoughts. 

On this trip, I didn't plan this first painting. I didn't promise myself anything, I didn't expect anything. We pulled off in a rest stop in Moriarty, NM, and I looked across the highway at the landscape and decided this would be it. I got my stuff together and I started the painting before I had time to worry myself out of it. 

I painted fast, and without thought, and I was grateful. My best paintings are the fastest ones, and the ones I dither over the least. I love the way this one came out. It is bright, and simple, but has a lot in it, too. 

And for me, the best part was that it was done! The first painting was out of the way. YAY! 

***

Dog of the Day

Nice gig if you can get it. Saw this cutie in Walmart in Sahuarita, Arizona. 

***

Coda

 

"Some cowboys have too much tumbleweed in their blood to settle down." 

- Ken Alstad

Moonday Owl

Moonday Owl / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you would like to own this little painting! 

MY FRIEND CAROL AND I have arrived in Arizona, and I have to say, it feels great, so great, to be off the Eastern Shore and out in the world. 

We had a great trip, did some cool stuff, met some fun people, including the couple below - the Langs - who fixed up this school bus and then both quit their regular nursing jobs to hit the road, and work in temporary nursing positions for as long as the adventure continues. 

Here's their bus, outside and in. That's a little woodstove in the back, keeping things nice and warm!

They brought Lars, their Flemish Giant! 

***

WE HAD GREAT BARBECUE at Tyler's in Amarillo, Texas

***

HAD FUN SEEING CADILLAC Ranch, outside of Amarillo (and painting a car, too). Click here to read more about this fun public art extravaganza

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WE VISITED Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, NM, where would-be scuba divers were being trained...

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AND DROVE THROUGH Tucumcari, NM, with its great billboards and funky decorations

What a country this is! 

***

Coda

"Once a year, go someplace you've never been before." 

- the Dalai Lama

 

Cape Charles Sunset

 Cape Charles Sunset / oil on black canvas / 11x14 / $250

sold

MY KOKO is staying with my friend Susan while I'm in Arizona, and Koko's absence has changed the dynamic of this house more that I ever thought it would. And it's changed my view of her, as well. 

Every morning, when she is here, she comes into the bedroom and greets me, wagging and curling her body around in a circle, so that her wagging tail is close to her nose. Often, she sniffs my butt with that always wet, always cold nose, then stations herself in front of me begging to be petted, blocking me step by step as I try to walk into the kitchen. 

When it's time for breakfast - and she knows the time with remarkable accuracy and certainty - she barks and barks and leaps into the air, spinning around in circles in her excitement. She gets the other dogs all riled up, too. I put down Woody's food first, then I get the Demons into their apartment and put down their food and shut their door, and at this, Koko jumps up, bonks me in the butt with her forepaws, and runs into the kitchen where she barks and spins around in circles before spending all of 8 or 9 seconds devouring her meal. 

Koko knows what time I should go to the studio, and if I seem to not be complying, stands in front of me and barks until I either shut her down or give in. When I pick up my phone , and unplug the computer to go to the studio, she barks wildly and leaps around. Then, outside, she finds a toy or a stick and comes charging at me in her play run, front legs stiff, shaking her head and murdering whatever she has between her mouth. 

At the end of the studio time, when I turn off the heater and the lights, she often jumps up on me (this is forbidden), begging for kisses, and then she barks and spins, so happy to be going inside. 

When I pull out the leashes for our walk, she barks and leaps and spins and stirs everyone up. We often meet Liesl, my walking partner, in the street, and I will drop Koko's leash when I see Liesl coming around the corner, and let Koko run down Bayview to greet Liesl. Koko races down the road, tail wagging, and jumps up on Liesl, kissing her and groaning at her, with funny little throaty groans. 

Whenever visitors come to the house, Koko adores them. She greets with barking, jumping delight, and climbs up in their laps, staying as long as they will allow her. In the evenings, Koko snuggles between my legs on the couch, demanding to be petted, often licking me until I have to yell at her to make her stop. And at the end of the day, she jumps up on the bed, snuggling - and then leaves to sleep in a chair in the living room. 

Her behavior and how I feel with her gone makes me think of my own self, and how Peter must have felt when I went away on trips. Koko is a lot to handle. I am a lot to handle. Koko is loud, enthusiastic, demanding. I am loud, enthusiastic, demanding. Annoying, even. But I miss her loud, irritating, annoying enthusiasm. The days without her have been less colorful, less fun, less full of life. I am pretty sure this is how Peter felt. On one hand, it was good to get a break from me. On the other hand, life was less interesting without me here. 

Until Koko went to stay with Susan, I did not know that Koko was the enthusiasm leader of the pack. I didn't realize how much energy she has, how much delight she pumps into the days. I did not realize that it was her, more than any of the others, who required me to keep living after Peter died. I just didn't know. And while I'm sure I will be irritated with her from time to time when she comes back, I know from now on, I will go far out of my way to adore her, to honor the blessing that she is in my life. 

Above, Koko and Lulu, when Lulu was a puppy

Koko waiting to see Liesl

She wanted that cookie so much, I eventually gave it to her.

***

Coda

Every Dog's Story

I have a bed, my very own.

It's just my size.

And sometimes I like to sleep alone

with dreams inside my eyes. 

But sometimes dreams are dark and wild and creepy

and I wake and am afraid, though I don't know why.

But I'm no longer sleepy

and too slowly the hours go by. 

So I climb on the bed where the light of the moon

is shining on your face

and I know it will be morning soon. 

Everybody needs a safe place.

- Mary Oliver

The Marsh in Spring

The Marsh in Spring / Oil on black canvas/ 11x14/ $250 plus shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to buy this painting! 

IN PART OF "THE ROAD IN," yesterday's entry here on the blog, I found myself using long strokes, full of paint, rather than the short, choppy, juddering strokes I usually use - and it felt like a new world was opening up for me. 

I think that the more kinds of strokes I master and can use in any painting, the more colors I actually learn and know, the more potential my paintings have to be interesting, expressive, reflective.

 I've used long, swirly strokes in the skies for a while, but never, as far as I can remember, for the ground. Making the long strokes in the painting above felt like pulling back sheer curtains to see more clearly the window behind them. The view hasn't changed - it is just more clear. 

***

Coda

The Uses of Sorrow

Someone I loved once gave me 

a box full of darkness. 

It took me years to understand 

that this, too, was a gift." 

- Mary Oliver