Near Best Friends

Near Best Friends

Oil on canvas, 6x12 / $75 road price, $100 gallery/studio price

This is the first Utah painting I made - at the junction of Route 89 and the road that goes to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.

I loved the way the little building nearly disappeared into the rock face behind it, same colors, same reflections, same sense of solidity.
And I love the way the different layers of rock swirled through the face, their colors streaked in swirling strata of light and dark, all under a bridge of deep orange.

This is a small painting, 6x12, on a regular type of canvas, not the deeper gallery-wrap I usually use. I've painted around the sides, so it doesn't need to be framed, though it could.

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Cowboy Up! 

I've been looking for cowboys as long as I've been coming out West, and I finally saw one! Well, I've seen them around - in diners, in Office Max, in the grocery store - but I finally saw one working, herding cows. It was so exciting! He was twirling a lariat, above the heads of the cattle to shoo them along. He was whistling, too, a high-pitched whistle to alert the cows. He had a small dog along, who was working hard to corral the strays - and doing a great job, too! I'm going to make paintings from these photographs when I get home. 

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Dog of the Day

It's the little guy who was helping the cowboy. 

Want to see a video of the operation? Click here! 

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A Final Thought

"Paintings come out of themselves." 

- Lawren Harris

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

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

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