Handing Off

Handing Off

Oil on black canvas, 30x40

Please click here to email me for price and delivery info

I love this Pony Express painting! I think captures the motion of the riders as well as the beautiful soft and hard colors of the Arizona landscape. I absolutely love this series of Pony Express paintings, and hope to keep painting and selling them for quite a while. 

You can see this painting and more of my new ones in State College, Pennsylvania, during the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. The show starts Thursday and runs through Sunday. It's from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. through Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. 

I'm on Fairmount Ave., Booth O-20 (That's the letter "O"). Hope to see you there! 

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Triple Yikes! 

Out west, I saw this many, many times. Yes, it's a truck cab pulling not one, not two but THREE containers. Even with all the driving I do, and all the trucks I see, this combination gives me the willies. What do you think? 

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Dog of the Day

My friends Candy and Jeff, who also collect my paintings (yay!), are raising chickens, and sent me this photo for my Dog of the Day. I've had cats, birds and snakes as my DoD, but this is my first chicken. I love it! 

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

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A Final Thought

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."

- Edgar Degas

Ready for the Handoff

Ready for the Handoff

Oil on black canvas, 30x40

Please click here to email me about price and availability

I'm so glad I changed my plans and spent time taking photographs of the Pony Express riders, back in January. I know I'm a little nutty about the whole event, but it transported me, brought me to the Old West, made me imagine - with a clarity I'd never experienced - what it must have been like to live back then. 

Also, I have kind of a thing for cowboys and horses. That's very much the 21st century me - but again, I think it's because they evoke a time and a way of life that call to me. I know I wouldn't REALLY want to live back then - with outhouses, woodstoves, gas lights at best, and exhausting days filled with the hardest kind of living and working. Of course, I don't want any of THAT... just the wide-open spaces, the clean air, the beautiful horses and the sense of adventure and discovery. 

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REMEMBER, I'LL BE at Center Framing and Art, 968 Farmington Ave., West Hartford Center, CT, on Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. If the weather is nice, I'll be outside, painting. If the weather is yucky, I'll be inside, hanging around...

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Dog of the Day

Today, the Dog of the Day, AND the odd extra item I try to find regularly for you all, are one and the same. This is Abby, our plott hound, up on the bed while Peter is still sleeping. 

Abby has a strange habit of finding Peter's boots and bringing one or both of them to wherever she is. She doesn't chew them, or do anything to them. She just brings them. I think they're her comfort, her binkie. Funny, eh? 

The stuffed squirrel that you can see above is a different story. Abby takes all the toys away from the puppies, especially the new toys. The squirrel is the newest one, and just before I took this photo, she'd slunk up to the puppies and yanked the squirrel away from them. This, she will chew up, de-squeak and disembowel. 

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A Final Thought

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." 

- Pablo Picasso

The Red Bandana

"The Red Bandana, "36x36

Oil on black canvas with gold leaf

Please click here to contact me about price and availability

I'm hoping people love these Pony Express painting, and that they buy them, because I'm loving painting them. I'm enjoying experimenting with perspective a little, bringing the horse to the front, putting the cowboy to the back a little, and stretching him by making his head smaller than it might be. Peter's not crazy about the gold leaf, and is worried that I might use it too much - but I am enjoying it, and hoping that I will know when enough is enough. 

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AS I WRITE this, the puppies are curled up together at my feet. Lulu is actually resting ON my foot, and Doc is curled up with her, licking her ear. I admit, I was not completely sure about adopting not one, but TWO more dogs. But I'm so very happy that we did. These two really, truly need each other. They sleep on each other, play with each other, watch each other - and clearly, learn from each other. 

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My dad is Donald Cooper... I stopped to take the photo of the Serva-Teria 

and noticed that across the street was Cooper Tires! 

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Dog of the Day 

This guy was snoozing in the sun in Tubac.

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A Final Thought

"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing." 

- Salvador Dali

Pony Express

Pony Express

Oil on black canvas, with gold leaf

At Priba Furniture, 210 Stage Coach Trail, Greensboro, NC

My beautiful gallery in the JH Adams Hotel in High Point, NC, has closed. But as my grandmother used to say, when one door closes, another opens. That's been the case with me - and with remarkable timing, too.                                                                                                                   I was in Arizona, nursing my injured knee, when I got a call from Gwenn Lance, who has run a gallery in Greensboro, NC, for 14 years. She was on the brink of moving to Priba, a large furniture store in Greensboro, and she wanted my work.                                                                                      On my way home from Arizona, I stopped in Greensboro, met Gwenn and saw the beautiful store and the amazing art she's collected and hung on the walls there. It's an exciting venture, and I'm thrilled to be a part of it. 

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ANOTHER FUN OPPORTUNITY came along last week, when artist Tamara Gonda asked me to participate in an artist-question series she's writing for her blog. I was her first guest artist, and am honored by the opportunity. 

To read the piece, click here - (http://www.tamaragonda.com/blog/march-art-talk-month-carrie-jacobson) and be sure to check out Tamara's work and her other blog posts, too. 

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I've never seen self-checkout lanes in a convenience store/gas station, 

but I saw them at this Pilot outside of Knoxville, TN! 

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Dog of the Day 

Saw this cutie at the show in Tubac. Very serious... 

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A Final Thought 

"To be an artist is to believe in life." 

- Henry Moore

Heading Out

Heading Out

Oil on black canvas, 36x36

Please click here to email me for price, shipping and availability

I made this painting from one of the photographs I took of the Hashknife Pony Express riders I encountered on the road between Holbrook and Scottsdale, Arizona, a week or so ago. I loved the angles of the horse and rider - the horse leaning in toward me, the rider starting to turn his mount back toward the oncoming Pony Express rider. 

Please visit my booth at the Tubac Art Festival, here in Tubac, Arizona, Feb. 10-14. I am hoping to be in the same spot I've had for the past couple years, at the east end of Plaza Road.

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Dog of the Day 

Reese (left) and Henry, pals with a great story, share the Dog of the Day honors. They're part of the family of Sadie, who writes the "She and Her Dogs" blog. Sadie wrote about me in October, and I've been receiving her blogs ever since. 

Reese and Henry have a great story; you can read about it by clicking here. 

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A Final Thought

"Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing." 

- Marc Chagall

Looking Back - and Another Gallery Experience

Looking Back

Oil on canvas, 16x16, $450

This Pony Express rider (click here to find out what I'm talking about!) lives in the Arizona mountain town of Heber-Overgaard, and has been participating in the Pony Express rides for 18 years.

 He was dressed in wonderful period garb, with a big black hat, a red bandanna and a cowhide tossed around his shoulders.

I love this painting!  I love the rawness of it, the simplicity, the abstract quality. I love that the horse is looking back.

Here's the photo from which I was working.

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IN MY MOST recent blog post, I told you about an excruciating, embarrassing, mortifying experience I had in Xanadu, a gallery in Scottsdale. I had a second experience at the K. Newby Gallery here in Tubac.

This experience was not excruciating, and in fact, I think it will help my painting. But in the moment, ouch, it hurt.

The Newby Gallery is an amazingly beautiful, glorious gallery that has a special place in my heart because it's where I first saw paintings by the late Louisa McElwain, who used a palette knife like no one else on Earth. I've wanted to be represented by this gallery since I walked in there.

This year, finally, I thought my paintings were good enough. I thought I could muster my courage and make a legitimate attempt.

In light of my recent experience at Xanadu, I first made sure that my paintings were clean, that the black backgrounds were solid and unmarked, and that the pieces were dry. Then I chose one - a big one, Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum - and headed to the gallery.

I walked in, scared, finding it hard to catch my breath, and in a moment, I found Leroy, who accepts or rejects work. I pulled the sheet off the painting and watched as he looked at it. My life held in the balance.

"I like it," he said, "but it lacks.... maturity."

My first reaction, "OK." My second, "ouch." I spoke neither aloud.

I shook his hand, got his approval for me to show him work in the future, and left. Sitting in my van, I momentarily sank low. Very low. There are many things someone can say about a painting. A lack of maturity is a pretty telling critique. It's not "your composition is off," "I don't like your palette," no. It's a much deeper comment, speaking to my heart, my progress, my future - and yet, it is a comment of details, as well.

As I sat in the van and pondered, my inner artist wailing a little, I felt myself begin to lift. While the critique hurt, it is valuable. This is a man with a great eye. He's filled the gallery with art that moves me, makes me dream and hope. And so his comments matter.

I thought more, and began to know what he meant, what he saw. The painting I showed him - which I love, and continue to love - has an exuberance, an optimism, a sunniness that is not mature. It has swirls and whirls that I love, and yet they imply tightness that speaks to a focus on detail and technique, instead of overall character - and there, I think, is at least part of the tension that spoke to Leroy. Combined with the rest, I understand the assessment, and will use it as a place from which to grow.

I love my bright, cheery, exuberant paintings, and I'm going to keep painting them. I am going to continue to reach for the things that make me happy, and that I know make others happy. But I'm going to do this now with the thought of "maturity," too.

Maybe I will have the honor of being represented by the Newby Gallery. Maybe I won't. Whatever happens, I am grateful that I had the courage to have this experience, to hear this man's insight, and to continue with the process.

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Dog of the Day

Here's Nick! I met him while I was painting a couple afternoons ago. 

He was a nice dog, patient and kind to his much younger, much bigger dog pal. 

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A Final Thought

"Life obliges me to do something, so I paint."

- Rene Magritte

Pony Express!

Pony Express

Oil on canvas, 10x10, sold

I was driving through the mountains on a back road from Holbrook, Arizona, to Scottsdale, when I saw a big hubbub ahead. Lots of police cars, flashing lights, a line of traffic. When I came up to it, I was amazed to see that the police cars were surrounding a guy riding a horse along the side of the road. 

I passed, and a little ways up the road, saw another guy, dressed in a long duster, waiting with his horse. A little ways later, another. It dawned on me that I'd seen historical marker signs naming this road as the Hashknife Pony Express route - and putting two and two together, I realized that I was watching the Pony Express. 

I drove past the riders and entourage, and in a ways, stopped at a store to get gas. The guy behind the counter told me that, indeed, this was a once-a-year running of the Pony Express, and that the riders were carrying real mail from Holbrook to Scottsdale! Each rider goes a mile or two, then the next rider picks up. They carry 20,000 pieces of mail, each stamped with the official Pony Express logo! You can read all about it on the website. This just seemed like the coolest thing - and the first fun thing I've seen on the trip. So far, this trip has been nothing but fear - a giant snowfall, the mock jury and visiting four galleries, seeking representation, all worthwhile, but all scary. 

So I changed my plans, turned around and went back to see the riders again, and paint! I painted the scene, leaving a space for the horse and rider, and then put him in. Later, in Payson, I saw all the riders riding in a line on the last leg, to the post office. 

Here's my painting in the landscape

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THE PONY EXPRESS painting was sold to my first sponsor for the Arizona Byways trip. This is not as structured as my recent trips, but sponsorships are still encouraged. Sponsors will have first choice of the paintings I make on this trip. I plan to paint in and around Tubac, and on some side treks, too.

A 10x10 sponsorship is $125. Please click here to email me if you want in.

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Scenes from the Road

Antelope just wandering the streets in Springer, NM. 

Dinosaurs dot the Arizona landscape. Above, a display in Holbrook. 

Below, a display in I-40 just outside Holbrook. 

Some good-looking donkeys in Kansas, above, and a Kansas landscape, below.

Snow in New Mexico

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Dog of the Day 

 I saw this lunatic Corgi in a small town in Oklahoma. 

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A Final Thought

"I found I could say things with color and shapes 

that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for."

- Georgia O'Keeffe