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

Tumacacori - and an Excruciating Experience

Tumacacori

Oil on canvas, 10x10, $125

Click here to purchase 

(Or email me - carrieBjacobson@gmail.com - if the link doesn't work. It's an experiment!) 

This is the first of the available Arizona Byways paintings. The first person to click on the purchase link (or to email me) will be my patron and sponsor for the trip, and the owner of this lovely little piece! The price includes tax and shipping.

Here's my painting in the landscape, just up the road from my dad's house in Tubac.

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I STARTED THIS BLOG with the notion of sharing the ups and downs of my painting career, and to be honest, no matter how brutal or painful.

I've experienced two events that were pretty excruciating - but from which, I have learned worlds. Here's the first one. The second will follow in my next posting.

In Scottsdale, AZ, there's a man named Jason Horejs who heads the very beautiful Xanadu Gallery. Jason not only runs the gallery (actually two galleries, now), but he also does a lot for artists, including writing an excellent book - "'Starving' to Successful"), publishes a regular catalog in which artists choose to participate, writes a blog and runs online seminars, including a series that focuses on bringing one artist from working in the studio to selling in the gallery.

Over the years, I've participated in a number of his productions, bought his book, and become increasingly sort of awed at how much he gives to help artists.

So when I decided that part of the focus of this trip would be to screw up my courage and approach galleries, I decided that Xanadu would be one of the galleries I would approach.

I found the main gallery in Scottsdale, picked up a bag in which I'd stashed a recent painting ("Free Already"), took a handout I'd made that introduced myself and showed a few more paintings, and set out.

Heart thumping, head buzzing with fear and courage combined, I entered the gallery - palatial, gorgeous and filled with amazing art - and asked for Jason. Not here, the woman said. At the other gallery, just down the road. I set off, momentarily relieved, but thinking, "Great, I have to do this again."

At the other gallery, I strode in (this one is smaller, more intimate, and again, filled with lovely art). In a moment, Jason walked down the stairs. I introduced myself, handed him my paper, and pulled the painting from the bag.

He told me right away that at the moment, he just didn't have room for a new artist, but that I could check back with him in March or April. OK, I said, I understand. But did he want to see my painting anyways? Sure, he said.

And then, it happened. I reached into the bag and realized, to my utter dismay, that the painting had smeared. It hadn't been dry when I put it in the bag! My heart just broke. Here I was, having summoned the courage to show my paintings to this man who's helped me so very much, and about whose gallery I had had such high and optimistic hopes - and I had totally, completely and horrifyingly screwed up. I felt like melting into the floor, and I am amazed that I didn't.

Jason was kind, of course. This sort of thing happens, not my day, etc. I left, red-faced and feeling broken, and walked back to my van.

I sat there for a few moment, fighting tears. And then I decided that I would go back. I would march back in there, with a different painting, a painting I knew was dry, and ask him to look.

That's what I did. He looked, and I could see the initial, horrible impression I'd made fall away just a little. He didn't turn around and say, "Yes! I'd love to have you in my gallery!" - his rejection had happened even before the painting disaster - but I could see that I had redeemed myself, just a little.

I will keep in touch with Jason, and I will hope that this meeting was the start of a process that ends with me being represented by Xanadu. And even if it doesn't, I learned a few valuable lessons from my mortifying encounter.

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Dog of the Day

Yes, I have Dog of the Day photos from this trip, but I am missing my honey and my own dogs, so Abby (left) and Koko are the Dogs of the Day, here on the couch with Peter! 

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

"If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing." 

- Marc Chagall

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