Manny, Moe and Jeff

Manny, Moe and Jeff

Oil on canvas, 36x60

Please click here to email me for price and availability

This painting started its life looking a little different. The sky was pretty much the same, and the road to the left was pretty much the same, and the mountains were sort of the same, but the cows were smaller, the trees were smaller, the water was smaller, and the colors - still a little out of my comfort zone - were a little more quiet. 

I wanted to like it, but just couldn't, even though people liked it, and I was going to paint over it. Instead, I really looked. I searched for what was bothering me, for why I wasn't in love with this cowscape. It took a while, but it came to me, and I was able to make the changes that are making it work. 

This is a process that's happened a few times to me now. It is still a new process, of improving rather than tossing out. And it's a process I hope I can bring to other parts of my life, including my own sense of self. 

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Shows! 

I'm sending a big thank you to everyone who came to the shows this summer, took the time to look at my paintings and talk with me! And a special thanks to all of you who bought paintings! Each sale is a miracle, and I appreciate each one very much. 

I'll be on the road for a few weeks, starting tomorrow. Here's my schedule: 

Stamford, CT, July 29-30, Harbor Point, Booth 20

Uptown Art Festival, Minneapolis, MN, Aug. 4-6, Booth 3407 on the mall

Mystic Outdoor Art Festival, Mystic, CT, Aug. 12-13, corner of Willow and East Main

and Centerfest, Durham, NC,   Sept. 16-17

Hope to see you there! 

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Dog of the Day

Pals! Saw these guys at the show in State College, PA. 

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

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A Final Thought

“Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. … 

It is a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are the spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world's greatest soprano. 

Not everyone can be the artist. 

There have to be those who witness the art, 

who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see.” 

- Ann Patchett

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Feels Like Home

Feels Like Home

Oil on black canvas, 16x16 

Please click here to email me for price and availability

I get mental blocks about the names of things - and sometimes of people, too.  I seem to have a particularly slippery spot in my brain for the names of shade plants. I just had to look up "hydrangea," which is what these are, in the painting above.

I can describe them completely, in terms of color, scent, the feel of the blossoms and leaves - but I can't seem to hold their name in my head.

The same holds true for astilbes and hostas. I love all these plants, love to see them, love to grow them, love to paint them - but I just can't remember them.

Maybe part of painting for me is to strengthen my visual memory, in places where my brain memory just doesn't make it?

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Wickford Art Festival

Unless the hydrangea painting sells beforehand, I will have it with me at the Wickford Art Festival this weekend, July 8-9. I'm Booth 82, on Elam Street at the junction with Spinx. It's such a fun show, in a beautiful little town. For information, check out WickfordArt.org.

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Dog of the Day

Cute! 

Want your pet to be the Dog of the Day?

 Send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com 

(ps, your pet doesn't have to be a dog...) 

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A Final Thought

"Color is my daylong obsession, joy and torment." 

- Claude Monet

Today's Forecast

 Today's Forecast 

Oil on canvas, 15x60

sold

I was inspired to paint "Today's Forecast" from a photograph that a collector of my paintings posted on Facebook.

The photo was of her own cows, whom I've met - and painted, too! And she ended up buying the painting, so it feels like it has gone full circle.

I love the photograph so much, though, that I might make another somewhat like it, in a different format. We shall see.

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Speaking of Cows

One of my paintings has been chosen as the art T-shirt for the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts! This is a huge show, one of the top shows in the country, and I am honored that a painting of mine has been selected. 

The festival takes place July 13-16 in State College, PA. I'll be in Booth O-20, on Fairmount Avenue. For more information, and to reach the store where you can buy a T-shirt, please click here. 

The weekend before the State College show, July 8-9, I'll be at the Wickford, RI, Fine Arts Festival. I'll be on Elam Street. 

This is a marvelous fine-art show, in one of the most charming villages in Rhode Island. I'm really looking forward to it! For more information on this show, please click here. 

And the final weekend in July, the 29th and 30th, I'll be at a show in Stamford, CT, a new show for me. For info on that one, please click here. 

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Dog of the Day

It's Loki, a sweetie who lives with a dear friend of mine in Arivaca, Arizona. 

Bet he's staying inside this summer! It's been 110 and hotter out there. 

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A Final Thought

"Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods, 

like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be 

many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue." 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson