Home in a New Rhythm
Oil on canvas, 30x30
Usually, I make large cow paintings with large cow images. Sometimes, though, I do paintings like these, with smaller cows, paintings that are more like landscapes with cows, rather than portraits of cows, or cowscapes, as I call them.
I do love painting the large foreheads and wet noses and huge eyes of a cow seen up close - but it's fun to see what I can do with the shape of the cow bodies, and whatever colors seem to work, what I can suggest, what I can leave out, what I must put in.
When I have solid hours and days and weeks to paint, it's a true delight to have the time and space and canvases to experiment like this, and that's what I've been doing. Some of the paintings I'm going to post in the next week or so will be in my upcoming shows - in Dayton, Ohio, Sept. 25-27 and then, Paradise City in Northampton, MA, Columbus Day weekend. Others will be in galleries up and down the East Coast. So email me if you're interested! ("Cows on a Ridge," just above, has already sold).
John O'Donohue's poem, "For a New Beginning," is below. It's where I found the words for the title of the top painting.
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Coming back from the Big City last week (Virginia Beach, woo-hoo!), I noticed two signs on this fabric store on Route 13. As long as I remember, there's been a spray-painted sign, "Open 1-4 p.m. Every Day." Now, beneath it, the same person has spray-painted "Everyone Matters."
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Dog of the Day
Jojo has had a cough for a year now, and the vets have not been able to figure it out. Until recently, it seemed possible that she had injured her throat pulling at the leash and barking during walks. But now, it's become what's called a productive cough, and it is persistent. She's also off her food, and when I took her for a short walk yesterday, just to try to cheer her up, she poked and dragged along, a world away from the jaunty, pulling, barking, energetic Jojo she always has been. I'm bringing her to the vet today; think good thoughts for her, please.
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A Final Thought
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plentitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
- John O'Donohue
