Thurston Owl the Third

Thurston Owl the Third / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping!

YES, MY CULTURAL LEXICON includes "Gilligan's Island"! In fact, though I can barely remember what I did yesterday, or what I am supposed to do tomorrow, I can sing you the entire theme song of "Gilligan's Island." 

I would also more or less brag that I could tell you stories of the episodes, but first off, that would be a lie, and second, it would be more or less meaningless, since, as far as I recall, each episode went pretty much this way: One of the marooned people figures out a way to get off the island, Gilligan flubs up the plan, and they remain marooned. 

I've heard people my age (and even myself!) look at the current youth culture and rue the fact that today's teens and 20-somethings will one day run the world. I can bet that my parents looked at my brother and me being entranced with "Gilligan's Island" and had similar misgivings. 

***

For Today

The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale

A tale of a fateful trip

That started from this tropic port

Aboard this tiny ship. 

The mate was a mighty sailor man

The skipper brave and sure

Five passengers set sail that day

On a three-hour tour

A three-hour tour

The weather started getting rough

The tiny ship was tossed

If not for the courage of the fearless crew

The Minnow would be lost

The Minnow would be lost

The ship set ground on the shore of this

Uncharted desert isle

With Gilligan, the Skipper, too

The millionaire, and his wife

A movie star,

The professor and Mary Ann

Here on Gilligan's Isle

That's all I remember! Or at least, that's all I thought I remembered, but "no phone, no lights, no motor car/Not a single luxury" did resonate. So the same tune recurred with new words on the closing credits. Here's how that part goes: 

Now, this is a tale of our castaways

They're here for a long, long time

They'll have to make the best of things

It's an uphill climb

The first mate and his Skipper, too

Will do their very best

To make the others comfortable

In their tropic island nest

No phone, no lights, no motor car

Not a single luxury,

Like Robinson Crusoe

It's primitive as can be

So join us here each week my friends,

You're sure to get a smile

From seven stranded castaways

Here on Gilligan's Isle! 

 - written by Sherwood Schwartz and George Wyle

Small Owl

Small Owl / oil on black canvas / 4x4 / $48 including shipping

sold! 

THERE'S AN AD ON TV - I think it's for replacement windows - that proclaims that "Faster is better." 

This morning, I started wondering about that statement. Initially, I thought that it was all wrong, that, in fact, most times, slower is better. 

But is it? Is there some inherent value in slowness? I do think there's a benefit to slowing down in life - to taking the time to look around, to contemplate, to wonder. But all the time? Would I want a generally slower life? The covid, and Peter's death, have forced me into a somewhat slower life than I used to have, and while that is OK for now - and good thing it is, since I can't change it - I certainly wouldn't want it to be even slower. 

I tend to work very fast. In journalism, speed (with accuracy) is a treasured commodity, and I had it. 

Now, I paint fast. Very fast. This used to worry me - but then I read that Vincent Van Gogh always painted as quickly as he could - and I think I understand why. By painting quickly, you outrun the voice that tells you that you suck, that you're the worst painter in the world, and that surely, that mark there, or that one there, or those three dozen there, are wrong wrong wrong. Paint quickly enough and you're gone before the voice starts its utterance.

So, I don't know. Maybe faster is better. 

I bet the window installers wish people would spend as much time thinking about their product as I've spent thinking about their slogan. 

***

For Today

Poetry of a different type. I hope you will take some time to go through the site. Slowly! 

https://www.livingyourwildcreativity.com/art-gallery-1-mitchell-1

Barred Owl

Barred Owl / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping

sold!

THESE LONG SUMMER DAYS seem endless. I try hard not to ask the big questions - where I will go, what I will do, how I will solve the riddle of my life - because when I start thinking like that, there is just too much time. Too many minutes. Too much daylight. The brutality of an 8:30 sunset becomes unimaginable, and all I want is darkness, and for it to be OK to go to bed, shut down the day, close off the questions, make my mind be quiet. 

So instead, I focus on the things that I can do. The answers I can come up with. I can vacuum the house. I can put the dishes away. I can make a 5x7 painting of a bird. I can't make the sun set, or bring Peter back, or answer even one of the big questions. But I can brush a dog, make another pot of coffee, figure out what bird to paint next. 

***

For Today

"I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful." 

- Pete Hamill

Owl

 Owl / oil on black canvas / 5x5 unframed / $68 includes shipping

sold!  

DURING THE GREAT CONFINEMENT, as my brother calls it, I've learned I can live without some things that, in my pre-covid life, I was pretty sure I needed. 

Art shows. There are some wonderful things about the art shows, some things that I miss terribly - the artist community, the delights of seeing artist and buyer friends, the excitement of showing my paintings to new viewers and old ones. But I do not miss the huge expenses, the giant outlays of energy, the exhausting days spent on 90-degree pavement or in brutally shadeless parks or parking lots. 

Lunches out. I enjoyed my lunches out with friends - but they broke up my painting days even more than I suspected they did. Having entire stretches of days to work is a blessing. My friends here are by and large retired, and tend not to remember that I'm still working. Still earning a living. 

Going INTO WalMart. I started using WalMart pickup long before the covid, but with two exceptions, that's the way I've shopped since March. It's great. 

Hair dye. Yup. The covid has helped me make peace with my gray/white/whatever hair. 

Starbucks. Or Dunkin' Donuts, or any takeout coffee. Who knew? Along those lines, turns out I can live easily and happily without half-and-half in my coffee. Back to black, as I drank it for the first 60 years of my life. 

There is plenty that I miss these days, every day - but plenty that I'm not. And I am delighted to be living a simpler, easier life. 

What have you found you can live just fine without? 

***

For Today

The Owlets at Nightfall

   The sun is sinking. Each minute the air darker. The night

thickens near the ground, pulls my body down to it. And if my body

is earth, then what? Then I am down here, thickening as night 

comes on.

   There are earth things, earthly, joined, they are snuggled down

in one manger, one sweep of arms holds them, one clump of pine,

the owlets sit together in one hollow tree...

   When night comes what has been sun in me all day will drop

underneath the earth, and travel sizzling along the underneath-

ocean-darkness path... There a hundred developed saints lie

stretched out, throwing bits of darkness onto the road.

   At midnight what has been moon in me will also vanish. I will go

down toward utter darkness and find myself in the prison cell with

Joseph. 

- Robert Bly

Owl

Owl / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68 including shipping 

MOST OF YOU KNOW, I think, that I am a recovering alcoholic, clean and sober since 1987. It's a vital part of my life - one that makes all the other parts work - and was a vital part of Peter's, as well. We always said that we would stay married forever - unless one of us started drinking, at which point, without discussion, the marriage would be over. 

These days, meetings are done largely on Zoom, and that means you can go to any meeting anywhere. So on Friday, I attended a meeting in Des Moines, where the father of a former Eastern Shore resident was speaking about his 53 years of sobriety. 

His main message was that he began to find success in life and in sobriety when he turned his will and his life over to the care of his higher power. 

I realized, as I listened, that I've been holding on very tight since Peter died. I have structured my life around tasks - the bird project, training the dogs, walking every day, losing the final 19 pounds. Getting rid of things. Clearing the house out. Task upon task upon task. 

That's been fine. It's been necessary. It's been how I have been able to cope. But it has kept me from so much that I value - discovery, imagination, adventure, exploration.

I realized, listening, that I've been clenching my fists around my life, clenching my body around my tasks, holding tight, as tight as I can - and understandably, since so much that I held and held dear was suddenly just gone. 

So I have vowed to loosen up. To hand it all over to my higher power. To quit worrying, as much as I possibly can, and trust that the joy and peace and love and protection that I have always felt in my life will continue, and will hold me safe, and let me feel like living again. 

***

For Today

"The way to happiness: Keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Scatter sunshine, forget self, 

think of others. Try this for a week and you will be surprised." 

- Norman Vincent Peale

Great Horned Owl

Great Horned Owl / oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68

ON MY FIRST PAINTING TRIP, which was well more than 10 years ago, I drove to Wisdom, Montana and back, painting all along the way. 

At that point, I was using brushes, and putting on the oil paints very thinly - almost like watercolors. I was often not bringing the painting to the edges of the canvas, a thing I still do now, but in a different way. 

I have a number of paintings from that trip that have never sold - but they're good paintings, ones I love, and ones that I believe have value. 

Since Peter died, I have been clearing my life and my house and my studio of things that don't work for me. Things that make me unhappy. Some of that clearing out has involved paintings. I have thrown them away, covered them over, even burned a couple. 

But I've saved some, too. The other day, I took the painting below, of an alfalfa field near Sandusky, Ohio, and I painted over it with heavy paint and my palette knife. In the process, I remembered that trip, and how liberating it was. And I remembered falling in love with yellow. 

That area of Ohio was rich with yellow. Overloaded with yellow. It was summer - July, I think, or maybe August - and the fields were full of wheat and alfalfa and who knows what all else. The sun up there, by Lake Erie, shone golden and brilliant, especially in the late afternoons, and the world took on a rich yellow hue that I'd never noticed before. 

On that trip, yellow entranced me. Delighted me. Warmed me. Romanced me. I painted as much yellow as I could, used all the yellows I had, mixed them, pushed them, begged them to hold the light and shine that brilliance from the canvas. I lived in a whirl of yellow, and I was in love. 

All of that came rushing back to me when I painted over the Sandusky canvas. And it crept into the owl, too - a happy blur of yellow on a warm May afternoon.  

Above, the original painting. Below, the refurbished one. Both are 12x36. Please contact me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com for price, shipping and availability.

***
For Today

"Owl," said Rabbit shortly, "you and I have brains. The others have fluff.
 If there is any thinking to be done in this Forest - and when I say thinking I mean thinking - you and I must do it."

- A.A. Milne

Owl

Owl / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68 including shipping

sold!

DOC AND LULU, two of my four dogs, are about 4 years old, and have lived with me for almost all of their lives. Koko is about 5, and has been my dog for almost all that time. 

Though Doc is a male, he rarely lifts his leg to pee. He's done it maybe 25 or 30 times in those four years. But last week, he not only lifted his leg three times, he also peed on Koko's head each of those times! And she let him.

Come to find out, this is not so unusual. My daughter Erika and my sister Laurie told me that their male dogs peed on their females. And I do remember that, ages ago, when Peter and I lived in Maine, we had two male dogs, Gus and Najim, who were mostly great friends but occasionally wicked enemies. In some phases, they would just pee all over, reaching for dominance. So we started locking them in their crates when we couldn't keep a careful watch over them. The crates were side by side, and in a while, they started to pee on each other through the crate. 

Well, I guess it is just us and society that says that this is a bad idea. I'm pretty glad us and society do say so. 

***
For Today

"An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision."

- James McNeil Whistler

Great Horned

Great Horned Owl / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68

sold!

SKIPPED A DAY HERE, not because I didn't have the paintings, but because... I forgot. Me being me. 

And that is a thing I've realized about painting, Popeye - you am what you am. You paint who you are. 

If you are a detail person, painting detail is what delights you. If you're a big picture person, your painting is probably not going to focus on details. 

Some of this is obvious - if you love color, as I do, your paintings will tend to be colorful. Not such a fan of brightness? You will make quiet pieces, subtle and carefully toned. 

I think that painting, or any art, really, is a way to find out who you are - and so it works frontwards and backwards. By the time I started painting, I had already realized that I wasn't a great detail person - but I didn't understand that that was a defining part of my character. 

I've noticed, at the shows and in life, that most kids are happy, eager artists. They love to create, and they create exactly who they are. Exactly how they see the world. At about 12, a lot of them begin to measure themselves against others. Many of them leave paint and color and begin to draw. They leave fresh, bright paintings for detailed, serious, black and white pieces. Art becomes work - and guess what? They don't like doing it so much. 

It always makes me sad when I meet a kid and we start talking art and she tells me she likes to draw but she isn't very good. My best hope is that she will find the joy again, stop measuring herself against others, and just create. 

***

Bird a Day Video

WHILE I WAS FORGETTING to post this owl, I was making a video of the Bird A Day project so far. You can watch it on YouTube - it's pretty fun, I think! 

Here's the link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AEDuiN4ljY&feature=youtu.be

***

For Today

The Poetry Teacher

The university gave me an new, elegant

classroom to teach in. Only one thing,

they said. You can't bring your dog.

It's in my contract, I said. (I had

made sure of that.)

We bargained and I moved to an old

classroom in an old building. Propped

the door open. Kept a bowl of water

in the room. I could hear Ben among

other voices barking, howling in the 

distance. Then they would all arrive - 

Ben, his pals, maybe an unknown dog

or two, all of them thirsty and happy.

They drank, they flung themselves down

among the students. The students loved

it. They all wrote thirsty, happy poems.

- Mary Oliver

"Dog Songs"

Owl in Flight

Owl in Flight / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68

sold! 

IF YOU'VE EVER seen an owl in flight, you know how freakishly silent its flight is. 

Apparently, their wing and feather structure make this possible. According to the National Audubon Society, a part of this is the fact that their wings are huge, in comparison to their bodies. This means that they can fly slowly, gliding more than flapping. And if you've been around birds, you know that that flapping is surprisingly loud. 

The leading edges of owls' wing feathers are serrated, and this apparently breaks up the turbulence in the air streams around them. 

Their quiet flight helps them sneak up on their prey, and also safeguards their ability to hear their prey - less distraction from their own wings. 

Cool! 

***

Workshop

We will be painting a vase of lilacs this Saturday, at 1 p.m. Eastern on my Carrie Jacobson Artist Facebook page. I hope you'll join us!

Find me on Facebook Live around 1, and set yourself up with something to paint with and something to paint on, and off we'll go. The workshop is free, and will take about an hour. I'll be using a palette knife and oils, but you can use whatever you like.

Good colors to have will be a blue, a red, a white, a yellow, and to make life a little easier, a purple - or you can mix your own purples, if you like.

If you wear tie-dye, you'll have extra fun!

Here's my Carrie Jacobson artist page - https://www.facebook.com/carriejacobsonartist and here is a page with most of the workshops I've given since the isolation began - https://www.facebook.com/Carrie-Jacobson-Workshop-Videos

See you online!

***

For Today

"Owl," said Rabbit shortly, "you and I have brains. The others have fluff. 

If there is any thinking to be done in this Forest - 

and when I say thinking I mean thinking - you and I must do it." 

- Rabbit, created by A.A. Milne

Northern Barred Owl

Northern Barred Owl / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / unframed / $68 including shipping

sold! 

I'VE LED TWO ONLINE painting workshops in the past two weeks, and they've been fun and successful, in that participants seemed to have a good time, and make paintings that they - and I - like. Even people who have never painted, or not painted very much at all, made cool pieces. 

I painted in my regular way, in oils, on a black canvas, and using a palette knife - but participants used all sorts of materials, from watercolors to pastels to acrylics to digital paints. 

There's another workshop scheduled for this Saturday. It will be on my Carrie Jacobson, Artist Facebook page, which you can reach by clicking here - here's the full-blown address, just in case - (https://www.facebook.com/carriejacobsonartist). Go to that page and click Follow. Likewise, go to my personal page and put in a friend request. 

In the next day or so, I'll create an event, which should also make it easier to find the workshop. 

It will take place on Saturday, April 4 at 1 p.m. Eastern. The workshop is free, there is no need to register or sign up. Just set up with whatever you want to paint, and whatever you want to paint on, turn on your computer, find the workshop, and give it a go. The workshop will last about an hour. See you online! 

***

April Flowers

Friday, April 3, through Sunday, April 5, on my Jacobson Arts website (http://jacobson-arts.com), I'll be hosting an online Flower Show and Sale. Fun! Paintings will range from $38 to $5800, and most will include shipping (or delivery). 

The sale will come online Friday morning around 7 a.m., on a special page on the website. You'll email me from a link beside each painting to make your purchase, and it's first come, first served. 

The paintings are fun, and bright, and cheerful, and full of springtime's hope and promise. I hope you'll find something you like! 

***

For Today

"I hope you love birds, too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven." 

- Emily Dickinson

Owl

Owl / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / unframed / $68 including shipping

sold! 

APPARENTLY, SOME PEOPLE don't know that you're not supposed to touch paintings. First of all, the older the painting, the more brittle. If you touched a Rembrandt, you'd most likely be arrested, but you also could chip off parts of the surface. 

Second, and more to the point (as we are talking MY paintings, which are neither old nor Rembrandts), your skin is covered with an acidic oil that keeps it flexible and healthy. But it damages paintings, and can't be wiped off without damaging the paintings more. 

And third, and even MORE to the point, some artists bring wet paintings to shows and hang them in the booth before they're dry. Yes, I am guilty of this, though I make every effort to hang those wet paintings in places that people can't reach. 

This owl painting, I made during the Tubac show. I put it on a box behind a screen at the very edge of the patio where I was showing my work. And some woman went all the way back there and picked it up, smearing the paint all over her fingers and along the edges of the painting. She didn't damage it, really (I can fix it), but she made me angry. 

So please, don't touch the paintings unless the artist invites you! 

***

For Today

There was an owl

who lived in an oak.

The more he heard,

the less he spoke. 

The less he spoke,

the more he heard.

We all should be

like that wise old bird.