Nuthatch, Perched

 Nuthatch, Perched / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to have this cutie! 

IN THIS LIFE ALONE, and with the covid, and with the terrible memory I've always had, I've had to find ways to remember to do things. 

A calendar, of course, is a great start, but doesn't work unless I first remember to write stuff down on it, and then remember to look at it. 

I've come to terms with my Alexa device, and use her more and more often to remind me about things - including feeding the dogs. Peter always fed the dogs, and many times after he died, I couldn't remember if I had or hadn't. You'd think they would let me know, but dogs are all about the food. A second dinner would not be a problem for them. Any time during the course of the day, if I rattle their food bowls, they are ready and barking. 

I've learned to count the dogs out loud, not only when they come in, but also when I give them their we-came-in-the-house cookies. Yes, several times, I left one or two of them outside for longer than I should have. Same with leaving the studio. Poor Woody was locked in there for hours on several occasions. Luckily, he is pretty much blind and pretty much deaf, and sleeps pretty much 23 hours a day, so he didn't know - but I was in a panic. 

I have learned that when paintings sell, I should move them from one side of the studio to the other. From the drying wall to the sold wall. More than once, I've sold a painting twice, and have had to make amends.

Lately, I've developed a few tricks to keep myself more or less civilized. I leave the bathroom light on in the morning to remind myself to brush my teeth. 

I load my pockets with gloves and fresh tissues when I come IN from walking the dogs, since I can't seem to remember to make sure I have those things when I go out to walk them. 

But still, I lose things and forget. Months ago, I put my favorite coffee cup somewhere, and have never found it. Last week, I took out a can of potatoes (did you know they made such a thing? I didn't, but got a few cans a while ago for a recipe that required them. They did the job, but are really not very good, so I've been feeding them to Woody, who needs fiber in his diet.) I put that can of potatoes down somewhere and have yet to find it. 

What tricks have you all learned during this covid year, to keep yourselves from slipping off the edge? 

***

Coda

I Go Down to the Shore

I go down to the shore in the morning

and depending on the hour the waves

are rolling in or moving out,

and I say, oh, I am miserable,

what shall--

what should I do? And the sea says

in its lovely voice:

Excuse me, I have work to do.

- Mary Oliver

Nuthatch

 Nuthatch / oil on black canvas/ 5x7 unframed / $68 includes shipping

sold!

A FEW YEARS AGO, PETER looped a length of fishing line around one of the branches in the white dogwood tree, and hung a hummingbird feeder from it. 

In the fall, I took the hummingbird feeders in, but left the twine. For the past few days, a wren has been yanking at this loop of line. She must think she has found the treasure trove of nest-building materials - but then, she can't loosen it from the branch. She will try two or three times, then move on. And then she comes back. Or maybe it's a different wren. 

I've thought about draping some bits of fishing line from the tree for her, but I can't imagine that fishing line is good for birds. So I will look around the house and see if I can find some yarn, or string, or something. She is so intrepid, so intense. I'd be happy to help her. 

***

ON SATURDAY, AT 1 p.m. EASTERN, I'll be giving another painting workshop, Live on my Carrie Jacobson Artist Facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/carriejacobsonartist/). We will be painting a chicken! 

It would be good to have one or two blues (ultramarine and cobalt or turquoise, if you want a second blue), a cadmium yellow, a cadmium red, alizarin crimson or alizarin permanent, a titanium white and any other colors that you like. Set up by your computer with something to paint with and something to paint on. 

The workshop is free and will last about an hour. We will be painting from the chicken picture above.

***

Gratitude

Today, I am grateful that I have a house already made, and not of fishing line. 

***

For Today

Pathological Puzzle

There are so many diseases

From rabies to the wheezes

That people can contract

Till it's hard to understand

How any man

remains intact. 

- Langston Hughes

What Are YOU Looking At?

What Are YOU Looking At? / Nuthatch / Oil on black canvas, 6x12, $135 including shipping

sold

THERE IS SOMETHING to be said for the little birds, brown and gray. Not flashy. Not vivid. Not iridescent. Nothing that invites you to look twice.

There is something to be said for the small, quiet way they go about their business, blending in, flitting, chirping. Thriving. At the feeder, there will be dozens of the little birds to one of the brighter one. Numbers of them feeding on the ground while the bright blue jays and queen-red cardinals push the food aside, tossing down clouds of seeds, to find the one bit that pleases them. And then the little birds on the ground pick up the leavings, happy to have them. 

I love the little birds the way I love gray skies, color-drained winter fields, the smart and shy and quiet people in my life. 

As I pack Peter's clothes to be donated, or given to my family and my friends, what I find is mostly colors that aren't bright, that don't draw attention. Browns and grays, the colors of the small birds that we both watched and fed and loved. 

***

Winter Field / Oil on black canvas, 16x16 (?) / Please contact me for price, size, availability

I WILL BE IN ARIZONA during the Tubac show, Feb. 5-9, and will be exhibiting, but not in my regular spot. Instead, I will be on the patio of my gallery there, Sweet Poppy,  19 Tubac Road, near Shelby's restaurant. 

This is a gamble for me, not exhibiting at the show, in the space where I have always shown and sold my work. But it is a simpler set-up and offers me some freedom and flexibility. This is the year for me to try different things, and so I am giving it a go. 

If you are in Tubac during the show, please come to Sweet Poppy and see my new paintings. 

***

For Today

Sonnet 97

William Shakespeare

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness every where!
And yet this time removed was summer’s time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
   Or, if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer
   That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.