Along the Southern Wall - and Heather and Joe's Maine Art

Along the Southern Wall

oil on canvas, 18x36

sold

Williamsburg is a surprisingly hopping place! It is not all history and button shoes and old-fashioned dresses, which is the picture I'd more or less had in my mind. 

When I arrived Friday night, I found a huge party going on in Merchants Square, the site of An Occasion for the Arts, the festival I'm in over this weekend. It was the birthday party of the square, and restaurants and bars had set up outside. They were selling food and drink quite briskly. People were dining in the square, and at bistros surrounding it. There was a band playing, and people were dancing!

Saturday morning, a farmer's market was setting up while we were setting up. It was jammed, absolutely jammed. Our festival was jammed, too - and one patron told me that just last weekend, she and her husband had participated in a gallery crawl. Twenty-five bucks bought them a tasting-menu dinner from the area's restaurants, and a view of art in galleries, stores, banks and offices. Coming up are a pottery exhibit, a corn maze, lots of art events, a half-marathon, free cooking classes and more. Who knew? Certainly not me. 

It was amusing to see people dressed to work in Colonial Williamsburg come through the show. People who live in town told me they never quite get used to seeing those folks dressed up and shopping in WalMart. 

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MY NEXT SHOW is Paradise City, on Columbus Day weekend, Oct. 11-13, at the Three County Fairgrounds in Northampton, MA. Click here for info, and to print tickets that will give you a discount on admission.  

Paradise City is a fun show, and I always enjoy being there. There will be lots of great art and crafts, tons of stuff to ooh and aah over... and good food, too! 

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MY FRIENDS HEATHER Macleod and Joe Keller are selling their art in a flea market store in Bridgton, Maine. I think their stuff is fun and creative and inventive - and I just love the grisly Halloween items.  

Bacon and egg chair

Blender Lamp

Halloween treat

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Dog of the Day

These two poodles, Charlie and Max, are therapy dogs, visiting people in hospitals and nursing homes regularly. They were great dogs, on the alert the entire time they sat on the bench. 

Joy for Weary Hours

Joy for Weary Hours

Oil on canvas, 12x24

Please contact me for price and delivery/shipping information! 

Though we didn't have a garden this year - a first in recent memory - the joys of the summer garden haven't passed me by.

I've savored strawberries still warm from the sun, and sweet, thin-skinned cucumbers from my friend Pat's garden.

I've served up squash and asparagus from Dulcie's garden, so fresh you could nearly taste the breeze in them.

I've breathed the rich spice of roses, the heavy weight of gardenias, the soft powdery scent of camellias. I've smiled at the swaths of black-eyed susans that seem to be everywhere this year, and marveled at the showy frills of irises and lilies.

I've missed having my own gardens. But there's always next year.

The title of this painting - my own little substitute garden - is the final stanza of a verrryyy long poem,  "The Poor Man's Garden,"  by Mary Howitt:

Yes, in the poor man’s garden grow

  Far more than herbs and flowers—

Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind,

  And joy for weary hours.

Coming soon to a painting near you! 

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This Weekend! 

Mystic Outdoor Art Festival! 

Corner of Willow and Main, across from the post office, on the Seaport side of Mystic. 

See you there? 

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Dog of the Day

This is a pretty funny photo to start with, but it's even funnier when you know the story. 

Zack, who is a GREAT dog, lives with my friends Cynthia and Kevin and their other wonderful dog George (click here and here for more photos). 

Zack has degenerative myopathy. His hind legs pretty much don't work. He can walk, a gliding, sort of slouching walk on flat ground, but needs help with steps and uneven territory. He is not in pain, and he is a very happy dog, but he has serious trouble getting around. 

Still, STILL, he managed to make it into his favorite hiding/shame place, the bathtub, when he, uh, let loose on the floor. Poor, dear Zack... 

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Extra! Extra! 

Click here to see a ridiculous and hysterically funny video!  Do it! You will laugh yourself silly! 

Summer Garden - and Another Good Show

 Summer Garden

Oil on seven canvases, 34x64

Please click here to email me for price and delivery information

I am gratefully celebrating another good show! 

Stockley Gardens, in downtown Norfolk, is a lovely, shady neighborhood of late Victorian homes. Some are still one-family homes; some are apartments or condos. I was directly across the street from one with big, screened-in porches where it would be great to have a nap in a hammock or spend the afternoon reading.

The show was in this lovely park, and I had the great good fortune to be under a tree, and near a gorgeous display of flowers that were for sale as a fund-raiser. The entire event was to raise funds for and awareness of Hope House Foundation, which helps adults with developmental disabilities.

Here are a couple photos of the area by my tent:




I set up on Friday afternoon. It poured Friday night, and it poured Saturday as I drove to the show. Poured so hard I could hardly see. But the sky cleared as I pulled into Norfolk, and happily, my tent held and, inside, my space was dry. Others in the park were not so lucky.

People came out in droves, in spite of the weather, and they bought. The very best thing for me was that both days, people bought my art moments after the show opened.

I hadn't realized the psychic toll that the early-day stretches of no sales take on me. So I need to be better prepared for this!

At any rate, I had excellent sales on both days. The buyers were about the most delightful people you'd ever want to meet, and I am so happy that they responded so strongly to my paintings. I  feel honored that my art is going to hang in their homes.

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'SUMMER GARDEN' is a huge experiment for me. It's a seven-canvas painting, and I think it's really interesting, fun, bold, captivating.

Sure, it will be hard to hang (the peg board I'm using in the photo makes it pretty much impossible to line it up correctly) - but what a splash in the right room! I've included a couple photos, below, of the piece in progress.

The very start of it 

Midway through

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ONE OF THE VERY EXCELLENT THINGS that happened during the show was running into a colleague from the Times Herald-Record. Dianna Cahn left the Record to work for Stars & Stripes, where she found herself in the front lines in Afghanistan and other places. Dangerous, difficult, important work. She's now writing military news for the Virginian-Pilot. It was a delight to see her again! 

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p.s., APPARENTLY, the video of grass blowing that I referenced in my most recent post didn't come through when the blog was emailed. Some folks couldn't make it work from the blog itself, either! Having no knowledge with which to fix either situation, I uploaded it to YouTube, so if you want to see it, here you go: Click here! 

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Dog of the Day

THE DOG OF THE DAY today is my dear Jojo, who is getting gray in the face. She's become a real studio dog, enjoying hanging around with me while I paint. I hate to think of her growing old, so all these gray hairs really touched me.