Patty's Song

Patty's Song

Oil on canvas, 20x20

Please click here to contact me for price and availability

It's been raining here, raining and raining and raining, and while all that rain brings its issues - smelly, muddy dogs; a halt to the flower-planting; two leaks in the roof - it also creates a marvelous, quiet, focused atmosphere in which to paint. My studio (left) is the former boat garage, in the back yard, over near the west neighbors. On warm days, I leave the front and back doors open, and open all the windows. This is great for letting in the breeze, the sun and the light, but it also lets in the dogs and all their barking. Running in one door and out the other is a great game for them, too, and while I don't mind, it is distracting. But in the rain, my dog friends aren't interested in playing in the yard. Even when they are, no one is out to be barked at.

I've enjoyed the focused time to paint, and hope you like the pieces I've created. This one is from a gorgeous photograph taken by my talented friend Patty. 

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Stuff I've Seen

Hahahaha! Saw this turkey-painted rock on the road to Arivaca, Arizona. I love that someone saw this, thought about it and then went back and painted it. 

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Dog of the Day

Saw this loony Australian shepherd at the Richmond show. A cousin of Doc and Lulu! 

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A Final Thought

"All forms of madness, bizarre habits, awkwardness in society, 

general clumsiness, are justified in the person who creates good art." 

- Roman Payne

Early Morning Melody

Early Morning Melody

Oil on black canvas, 48x48

Please click here to email me for info on price, location and availability

Overnight, the cold spring turned into hot summer, and my body hasn't caught up. Setting up my tent for the show at Paradise City, I found myself just drenched in sweat, for the first time this year, really. 

Part of me hates being all sweaty and sticky, and another part of me feels it's healthy, that the sweat draws out a whole bunch of bad stuff and flings it away into the humidity. 

This painting - a large version of one I painted a few months ago - makes me remember "the cool, green breathing of the leaves;" the sweet scent of new, thin grass; and the winter-cold earth warming. It was only a few weeks ago, but feels like a different era. 

I'll have this and some other exciting new pieces at the Paradise City Arts Festival this weekend in Northampton, MA. I'll be in Booth 909 in the Arena Building. Hope to see you there! 

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Funny Signs

Above, I found "Beaver Ruin Road" to be a hilarious sign. I'd like to hear about the event that occasioned the naming of that road! Below, a friend sent in this sign... Looks like Archie Bunker might be alive and well after all, selling real estate in Rhode Island! If you see a funny sign, or an amusing scene of any kind, please send me a jpg at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

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Growing Up Fast

Above, Doc and Lulu a couple days ago. 

Below, the same pups on the same steps, a couple months ago. 

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A Final Thought

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. 

It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science." 

- Albert Einstein

The Dreams I've Seen

The Dreams I've Seen

Oil on black canvas, 16x16

Please click here to email me for price and availability

 Oh, OUCH. The scene to the left was what I saw on Sunday, when I left Hartford, CT, to head home to Wachapreague. Honestly, it seemed like a late, lame April Fool's joke. While the snow stopped an hour or so past Hartford, the 32-degree temperature kept me focused on the surface of the road, and the potential for black ice.

Then on Tuesday morning, it snowed here in Wachapreague! Just too much.    

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THE WEATHER ALSO figured into my weekend plans. It rained most of the day on Saturday, so there was no painting outside Center Framing & Art in West Hartford Center, CT. I had a nice time, even so. I got to spend time with some people who really love my paintings and came in specially to see me and talk with me. It was great! 

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Dog of the Day

Saw this old guy last week at the Island House restaurant here in Wachapreague. It was a bit cold to be dining outdoors, but the dog and his human thought it was just perfect. 

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A Final Thought

"Creativity takes courage."

- Henri Matisse

Kinney Azaleas - and Paradise City

Kinney Azalea Path

Oil on canvas, 12x48

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

Just down the road from the University of Rhode Island are the Kinney Azalea Gardens, a paradise of color and bloom and the sweet promise of spring. 

Lorenzo and Elizabeth Kinney started the gardens in 1927 at their home on Kingstown Road. According to a website about the gardens, Lorenzo's father - the first professor of botany at URI (then the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts) - helped launch the project, with plants from the Lowland Rhododendron Farm. 

These days, there are more than 800 types of azaleas and rhododendrons on the property. They come in all sorts of colors, orange and yellow and white and of course the amazing pinks and reds that are more typical. 

The bushes bloom generally during the middle of May, and while I haven't been there this year yet, it is possible that the gardens are still in bloom. You can also buy azaleas and rhododendrons there, too! 

There is no fee to walk the gardens. Donations and plant sales provide the funds to keep the gardens up and running, so if you go, please leave them a little something! 

For information and particulars, please click here. 

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THE AZALEA PAINTING IS one of the ones I will have at the Paradise City Arts Festival this weekend, Saturday through Monday, at the Three-County Fairgrounds in Northampton, MA. You will find me in the Morgan Barn, the smallest of the three buildings at the fair. 

This is a wonderful show, filled with top-quality art and craft, including paintings, sculpture, jewelry, clothing, furniture, glass and lots more. Local restaurants are part of the show, too, so you can count on having a good lunch! 

There is a fee to enter the fairgrounds, and you can get a $2 discount by printing a coupon you can find on the Paradise City Arts website (http://www.paradisecityarts.com/), along with lots more information. 

Hope to see you there! 

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 Dog of the Day 

I met these chow mixes at the art festival in Arlington a couple weeks ago. They were as cute as can be! 

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 a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does, the better." 

- Andre Gide

May Azaleas - a Step Away for Me

May Azaleas

Oil on canvas, 10x10, $100 plus shipping if applicable

sold

There's a part of me that always wants to paint more loosely, more abstractly. But I yam who I yam, I guess, and so, most of the time, my paintings are fairly well rooted in realism. And that's fine - but still, on the rare occasions that an abstract sort of piece comes along, I welcome it. 

This started as a painting of a chicken, a large chicken face, and I just didn't like it. So I started smushing the paint around, then adding this and adding that, and azaleas arose from it - at least to my eye. 

I love the colors in this one, and the stepped swirls of paint. I love the energy of it, and knowing that it was a "mistake," transformed. What do you think? 

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Dog of the Day

The first time I visited Wachapreague, one of the things that impressed me was that, here and there, cats were just hanging out on front porches and stoops. The sight spoke to me of a place so quiet and sunny that the cats were warm and happy and safe. And that insight was true. This happy cat was snoozing in the afternoon yesterday on a sunny stoop on Pearl Street. 

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A Final Thought

"I would rather die of passion than of boredom." 

- Vincent Van Gogh

Dancing Dogwood - Dancing Dog

Dancing Dogwood

Oil on canvas, 10x10, $100

In the warm places here in the South, the grass is already thick, dark green. Slivers of leaves are starting to show, and in the deep shadows of the forest, dogwoods shine like light. 

In town, the daffodils have passed. Camellias drop their ruby blossoms onto the grass and the bright-white candy tuft. Azaleas are starting to burst all over, and inland, they pile in mounds of pure brilliance. And at home, our dogwood unfurls above the bank of brightening red and fuschia, a spring dance that fills me with joy. 

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Dog of the Day

When I was in South Carolina early in April, the family in the cabin across from me found this dog. The two kids named her Koa, after the KOA campground where we were staying. 

The pup was just adorable - and of course, a total handful, the way puppies are. They had found her in the road outside of the campground, and the campground owners put up signs, and the family went door to door along the road, but no owner showed up. 

We all sort of fell in love with Koa, who was an energetic, funny, sweet and full of what a friend used to call "puppy brain," that manic, fanatical impulse-driven thinking that puppies have. But the family had to go to Atlanta to visit a friend, and couldn't take Koa with them. They left her with the campground owners, not at all sure that they would come back for her. 

But on Sunday, they did, and I rejoiced! A good dog story with the best ending of all. 

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A final thought

"Go not to the object; let the object come to you."

- Henry David Thoreau

Big Cows - and Riding the Rising Tide of Spring

Big Cows

Oil on canvas, 48x48

sold

 

Another of the unexpected rewards of this life of painting is that I spent a lot of time outdoors. Throughout my decades of working inside office buildings, I thought I had maintained a connection with the natural world - and I had, but now I see how tenuous it was.

These days, I notice when the tips of the winter trees begin to redden with the very first touch of springtime, then turn yellow-green, and then, in what seems like seconds, burst into leaf. I've been out painting in chilly spring mornings when the first summer birds have sun their arrival. The earliest hummingbird landed, bedraggled and hungry, on the feeder outside my studio.

Here, on the Eastern Shore, and south of here, in the Carolinas and Tennessee, the dogwoods have bloomed, shining deep in the forest, and dancing along the edges of the woods. In town, daffodils have come and gone here, except for in the deepest of shadows. Azaleas are in bloom everywhere, ridiculously, piggishly bright, so vivid they seem to suck the light from everything around them.

This morning, I drove in a thin fog to the vet's, bringing a sample from Woodreau, who I hope is not as sick as the vet seems to think he could be. I made my way slowly, along the back roads, and the greening fields seemed to shimmer through the mist. I saw wisteria, hanging in vines in the woods, in front of a long-abandoned house.

The seasons turn in slow procession and these days, they carry me with them.

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Dog of the Day

This is Scout, who lives in Wachapreague, and walks by the house every day with Bill, a friend and fellow Red Sox fan. The dogs think Scout is the best target for barking EVER.

Azalea Afternoon

Azalea Afternoon

Oil on canvas, 8x24

Call me at 860-442-0246 or email me

if you are interested in buying this painting

The other day, I felt compelled to go out and rake the streams of tall cut grass that littered our yard after Peter mowed, two weeks too late.

I grumbled and grrrrd and thought plenty of dark thoughts until it occurred to me that, instead of just doing this one stupid task and letting myself slide into grumpiness over it, I could make it part of a plan.

As soon as I got that idea, the task lightened immeasurably.

So the plan is this: Get up, do my morning dog, cat and dishwasher chores, and then, before I do anything else, before I open the computer, before I have breakfast, I will go out and work in the yard for one hour. Set an alarm, start a task, and stop at 60 minutes.

Every year, I do my yardwork and gardening in big, unhappy gulps. I am always late, always weeding a patch that is so weed-filled that the task is impossible, always planting a month late, always tackling the impossible. No wonder it makes me crazy!

Today, I spent nearly an hour weeding my little shade garden. In the remaining time, I transplanted a couple little evergreens that I felt sorry for, after yanking them out of the shade garden.

Tomorrow, if it's dry enough, I will begin enlarging my new rose garden. If it's still wet, I will prune the overhanging branches that keep slapping me in the face.

Meantime, the Kinney Azalea Garden is still in bloom and lovely.

Thanks for reading!

Azaleas

Azaleas

Oil on canvas, 16x20
Call me at 860-442-0246 or email me

if you are interested in buying this painting

Yesterday, on my birthday, I went to paint in the Kinney Azalea Gardens, in Kingston, R.I., near the University of Rhode Island.

This five-acre space is filled with azaleas, rhododendrons, pathways, beautiful stonework, lawns and benches and twisty handmade fences. The garden was started by Lorenzo Kinney in the 1920s. Kinney's father was the first professor of botany at URI.

Dr. Susan Gordon, who manages the garden and worked with Kinney for years until his death in 1994, told me that he opened the gardens to the public in 1956. He didn't really have a plan, she said. He just kept taking the next step.

The azaleas are a little early this year (because of all the rain last year, Gordon said, and because of the warm winter), but the rhododendrons are just coming out. If you live in New England, this is a marvelous day trip. It's a great place to paint, for sure, and is also just a cool place to visit. And you can buy azaleas and rhododendrons there, too.


Gordon (and I am assuming here that she is, indeed, the woman I spoke with at length while I was painting) is an interesting person. She's probably in her mid-50s. She is blonde, rail-thin, strong. And she cares for two three-legged dogs, who accompany her in the garden. The younger (12) can get around fine. The older one (15) who could get around last year has gone downhill. She has a degenerative spine disease, and spends her days on a raised bed in the shade near Dr. Gordon. 


"I'm not throwing her away yet," Gordon said. The dog was sleeping on the clearly comfy bed. There was a bowl of water by her side, and a sign explaining that she is paralyzed, but loves to be petted, as long as she sees you coming. 


It takes a special person to adopt a three-legged dog, and to tend to one who has such dire trouble. But Gordon and the dogs seemed happy, and made me think again about love and its healing powers.