Daisy - and a Revelation

 Daisy

Oil on canvas, 30x30

Please click here to email me for price and availability

The Paradise City show was great for me in terms of seeing people I know and like, and meeting new people who appreciate my paintings. I've enjoyed meeting new artists, too, and, of course, seeing all the amazing art and craft items on display.

A few people picked up commission pieces, some large, so I made money (yay!) - but I did not sell very many paintings just off the wall to strangers.

At the end of the day on Saturday, I was picking up my friend, jeweler Cynthia Battista (check out her stuff by clicking here), and I said hello to the lamp-maker across the aisle. He asked how my sales had been, and I said just OK.

I asked him back, as you do, and he said, "Well, I won't know for a year."

And in that moment, everything changed for me.

He was so right! When I looked back at my day, my week, my year, my career in this amazing world, nothing is of the instant. Nothing is really of the day, or of the show.

People fall in love with an image in the moment, sometimes,  but often, that's just the start of things. They fall in love with the colors, the texture, the light, the movement, the journey I'm on, or with something neither of us can identify. I fall in love with their vision, their imagination, the stories they share with me about their lives and about the thoughts and memories and hopes that my paintings evoke. It's a relationship built on color and texture and excitement and possibility, and it unfolds and deepens, and the right paintings come, and the sales come with them.

So, yes. Ask me in a year, and I'll tell you how this show went.

***

Along those lines.... I met Susan a few years ago at Paradise City, and she (and her family) fell in love with my paintings. We saw each other at the shows over the years, and in the spring, she commissioned me to make this Big Cow painting for their new house. They picked it up on Saturday - and they are happy buyers, indeed! 

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Dog of the Day

I found this tiny sculpture (and a bunch of other hilarious and charming little pieces) at the booth of someone (or someones) whose work is called Arthead Studio. I was never able to get to the booth when the show was on to meet the artist - but isn't this fun? Check out more pieces by clicking here.

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A Final Thought

"Inspiration does exist but it must find you working." 

- Pablo Picasso

The Optimist's Declaration - and Paradise City!

The Optimist's Declaration

Oil on canvas, 40x40

Please contact me for price and shipping/delivery options

Sara Genn, daughter of the late Robert Genn, sends copies of "The Painter's Keys," a  newsletter that her father wrote while he was alive. (You can read all about the newsletter, and sign up to receive it by clicking here). 

I love getting this newsletter and usually learn something from it, or am inspired to think a new thought or look at life and painting in a new way. 

A recent newsletter focused on the value of titles. "The right title makes a difference as to how a work is seen and understood," Genn wrote. "Not only are titles a bridge to the viewer, they are also part of the art. I'm a believer in giving your titles some careful thought." 

I finished this painting, "The Optimist's Declaration," a month or so ago, and gave it that title in my inventory list. 

Today, when I went to put it on the blog, I couldn't remember where the name came from. Certainly, it was nothing I invented! I know it was a quote, but the only one I can find today came from Kierkegaard - and it feels unlikely that I was searching Kierkegaard! (the quote is below). 

So if any of you recognizes this quote from a more friendly source than Kierkegaard, please let me know. 

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SATURDAY THROUGH MONDAY, I'll be at the Paradise City Arts Festival in Northampton, MA. The show takes place at the Three County Fairgrounds, and includes really wonderful art and fine craft. You will see amazing furniture, sculpture, mobiles, glass, clothing, photography, painting and more. It's a fun, fun show! You can find out more about it, and get a discount off admission by clicking here to visit the Paradise City Arts website.

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A Final Thought 

"The joy of faith is different from mere happiness or sheer enjoyment. The movement of resignation distinguishes faith from both a naive optimism and a careless hedonism. In the face of the former, the difference is that the optimist's declaration (when facing adversity) that 'everything will be alright' is not based on trust but rather on a refusal to acknowledge the full extent of loss and human limitation. In the case of the latter, the difference is that the hedonist's immersion in finitudes is not based on deep attachment but rather on seeking pleasure."

- Soren Kierkegaard

Two Pairs - and that Paradise City Magic

Two Pairs

Oil on canvas, 36x60

Available at Center Framing and Art, West Hartford Center, CT

I think this painting is one of my best cowscapes ever. I love the expression I saw and caught on the cow right in the front. I like the barns a lot, and the trees along the ridgeline, too. The white-gray sky seems to work in this painting, and I like the rich, undulating field, too - in spite of last summer's dismay with such green blocks.

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THE FIRST BIG SHOW that accepted me was Paradise City, in Northampton, MA. (Here's my first booth) I'd gone to the show for years, and had applied thinking that I'd never, ever get in. The work in the Paradise City shows is about the best of any of the shows I've been in. I'd go, and ooh and ahh, and maybe sometimes buy something - and always, always, be motivated and inspired. 

When I got the notice that I had been accepted, I was just stunned. Honestly, I thought someone had made a mistake. I think that that acceptance is the single most confidence-building event in my painting life. 

When I left Patch.com, and journalism, to paint full-time, my first show was Paradise City. We were living in Connecticut, and I had packed the van and was ready to go when my brother called. The Hartford Courant's entertainment magazine had Paradise City on the cover, and the entire cover, the first day after I left the safe world of corporate employment, was a painting by me. 

Paradise City has continued to generate magic for me. I just returned from Pendleton, SC, where I had a good time and met fine people, but had very low sales. This is the third low-sale show in a row, and I was feeling deflated and confused. Then, Anne Pinkerton from Paradise City reached out and told me she was doing a piece on me for the show's online magazine.  It's a fine piece, and it really brings me and my art to life - and, in the moment, helps me feel that the low sales have nothing to do with me or my painting. Click here to read it! 

The Paradise City show is May 23-25, at the Three County Fairgrounds in Northampton, MA. I'll be in Booth No. 415, in the Morgan Barn. Click here for coupons for discounts on the entry fee. 

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Dog of the Day

Stormy, a very interesting woman, came into my booth in Pendleton, SC, on the second day of the show. She was clearly a free spirit, and entertained me with stories of her adventurous and eccentric life. She was wearing a great cross necklace, with a Russian Orthodox cross scratched into a block of metal. I really loved it, and traded her a small acrylic painting for it. She asked, then, if she could take a photo of me with Buster, her Boston terrier. I looked around for a dog.... She put her purse down on the ground, reached in and pulled out Buster! He is cast iron, and weighs a ton (she said 9 pounds but he felt heavier than that). She takes photos of him all over the place. So today, Buster is the Dog of the Day! 

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A final thought

"A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles 

than any wonder drug."

- Patricia Neal

A Good Harvest - and a Good Couple of Shows

                                  

A Good Harvest

Oil on canvas, 20x20

Contact Lori at Center Framing and Art for price and pickup/delivery options

I never, ever paint still lifes... Until now! 

A friend posted this photo on Facebook, and for reasons I still can't quite explain, I fell in love with it. I started to paint a couple days before I was to leave for the Broad Ripple Art Festival in Indianapolis, and between packing for that show, and Paradise City, and the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center show, and to bring pieces to Center Framing and Art in West Hartford Center, I was hard-pressed to finish it. I was so excited about it that I kept slipping out to the studio whenever I had a spare moment. 

I finished it, finally, just last week, during an unplanned one-day stopover at home, in beautiful Wachapreague, between Broad Ripple and Paradise . 

The painting got lots of comments during the Paradise City show in Northampton, MA, this weekend, though it didn't quite sell. But no matter. It looks great in the window at Center Framing and Art! Check it out at 56 LaSalle Road in West Hartford Center, CT. 

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Happy Buyers

                                       

 

THE FABULOUS CITISCAPE painter Teresa Haag O'Neill (check out her website by clicking here,  and her Facebook page, by clicking here) turned me on to the idea of taking photos of buyers with their paintings. I love seeing their happy faces! They made a good show for me, and I am glad to have met them, and grateful for their purchases! 

I had a good show in Indianapolis, too! Here are buyers from that show, and a cool photo of the show grounds, early one morning. 

 

                                                                 

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Dog of the Day

Here's our daughter, Erika, grandson Ashton and new grandcat Potsie, the Dog of the Day. 

Nice calendar in the background, too! 

Inlet, Old Lyme

Inlet, Old Lyme

Oil on canvas, 18x24

Please contact me for price and delivery options

I've been itching to get to the boat launch ramp in Old Lyme, a place I love to paint, and I finally made it out there yesterday, and did it feel great!

I've painted this place often before, and have usually used a panoramic-type of canvas in a one by three ratio - 8x24, 10x30, etc. This time I tried including more sky, and it gives a totally different feel to the scene.

I painted fast, I tried to paint with sure strokes, I tried to make the canvas feel as open and sun-soaked and brilliant as the day. It was what my soul needed.

***

I have encountered an absolutely great idea, and am about to embark on it, and would love input from you all. I saw a story about a guy who is planning on painting 100 10-inch by 10-inch paintings, and selling them each for $100 - and the notion just captivated me.

I can't completely explain my fascination with this idea, but the minute I heard about it, I knew I had to do it.

I spoke with Chris Rose, who runs the Lighthouse Gallery, about the idea, and he pushed me to take it a step further. Maybe do 100 paintings as linear pieces, a road, a beach, a journey. Maybe get 100 dog photographs and use a mosaic program to arrange them so that when they are all together, they make an image of a big dog - or a cat. Maybe use one large palette knife only, on all the pieces, or limit myself to one or two colors.


At any rate, I have a lot of ideas going around in my head - and I'd love to hear from any of you, if you all have ideas, about subjects or approaches or limits - or any other part of it. I think this is such a fun project!

***

Start planning now, why don't you, to go to the Paradise City show in Northampton, MA, over Columbus Day weekend! 

This will be my first fall Paradise City show, and I am pretty excited about it. It's in the same place as the spring show, Three County Fairgrounds, 54 Old Ferry Road (that's for GPS purposes), Northampton, MA. I will be in Booth 407, in Morgan Building No. 2... You can get more information on the show by clicking here to go to the Paradise City website.

Jacobson Arts is located in beautiful Gales Ferry, CT.

A Superb Second Day

Mill Valley Road, Hadley - sold

The second day of the show was as fabulous as the first, or maybe even better!

I went out early and made this painting, as the clouds and fog and humidity rolled in. This is a gorgeous area - with bustling little urban villages, strip malls with good stores, and a half a mile outside, gorgeous farmland.

It was a pleasure to set up early and paint, smell the grass and the sky, the scent of cows not so far off, and then go into the hot and crowded Paradise City Barn and talk art with people all day.

Three paintings sold Sunday, including this fresh, local plein air piece. So how GREAT is that?

I am tired today, but I am hopeful and optimistic. I continue to feel blessed. The people who are buying my paintings are not just buying things to decorate with - they love these paintings, and are feeling them deep in their souls. It's tremendously exciting, tremendously affirming - and FUN!

The Paradise City Art Festival runs until 5 p.m. today, here at the Three County Fairgrounds in Northampton, Mass. So come! I'm in the Morgan Barn, Booth 317. 

My booth, the second day

 

 

 

 

 

Jacobson Arts is located in Gales Ferry, CT, a village in Ledyard

Afternoon Sun

Afernoon Sun

sold

Let's just say that Paradise City was no paradise for me.

The show itself was fabulous! The stuff there was absolutely gorgeous - glassware that looked like the morning breeze swirling over a valley, tabletops made from slices of tree trunks my arms could not span, clothing made from handmade fabrics the color of a summer's dawn - and I saw people buying. All around me, people were buying - buying jewelry, and T-shirts, mugs and cast-iron candlesticks.
But no one was buying paintings.

I was one of five painters in the show, and we all bombed. Many of them have been doing this far longer than I have, and said that this show is usually one of their best.

I had lots of positive comments on my work. Lots of engagement. I met interesting people and had interesting conversations. But it was an exhausting and expensive few days.

So I am home now, licking my wounds and gathering my courage to go on to the next show - another Paradise City venture, this one in Northampton, Mass. I had a good show in this venue last year, and so I am hopeful.

And I love this painting!