Dry Wash

 Dry Wash / Oil on black canvas / 11x14 / $250 including shipping. 

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you would like to buy this painting! 

THE LANDSCAPE OF THE SOUTHWEST always inspires me. It challenges me, forcing me to use different colors, try different approaches, think and see and paint differently. It's exciting, and it's often difficult, and is always liberating - and surprising, too, which is a good thing for me. 

This painting, like so many of the paintings I've made that have turned out to be my favorites, is of a nothing sort of place. There's a teeny shopping plaza up the street, and to get from there to the road, on one side, you go over a bridge that crosses a dry wash. I looked up as we crossed it the other day, and the light was bouncing off the weedy shrubs, the mesquites, the dry pinkish soil, and I knew it was a painting. I could see the painting before it was finished. Before I even started it. 

It's a bridge I've crossed dozens, if not hundreds of times in the decade that I've been coming out here, and it is a landscape I've never noticed. One that I'd bet almost no one notices. But these places, these quotidian, unremarkable, characteristic spots, these are the ones that build a landscape, aren't they? Just as the unremarkable, daily, regular remarks and thoughts and hopes and dreams are what build our characters and personalities. 

Or at least, that's what I think this morning. 

***

Dog of the Day

I'VE BEEN WALKING around Tubac in the mornings, and making a special side trip to see the burros in a farm/ranch place at the east edge of town. You KNOW this will become a painting! 

***

A Thought for the Road

"Refuse to be average. Let your heart soar as it will." 

- A. W. Tozer

(Thanks to my sister for suggesting this header for the final area. It's the best so far. 

Do you have a different idea? I'm open to suggestions! )

Sunset Through the Trees

Sunset Through the Trees / Oil on black canvas/ 8x10/ $120 including shipping

sold

I AM HEALING. I see it nearly every day, sometimes in big steps, sometimes small. And while I am glad for this - because, who wouldn't be? - there is part of me that feels a bit of sorrow about it. Does this make sense? In grieving Peter, in mourning him, I am close to him. Respectful of the life he led, the life we led together. I am with him. 

In healing, I am moving away. I am taking steps on my own. I am learning to live without him. I know this is necessary, and it is what I want, but in a way, I rue my burgeoning independence, my quickening heart, the delight I feel in new adventures, new ideas, new friends. 

I will continue to heal, I know, and to grow and prosper, and find my way in this world without him. I'll  probably never be entirely without sadness, and that is OK with me. That little bit of sadness is as much a link as the memories of joy, of love, and the sharing of our lives. 

***

Coda

You, Therefore

For Robert Philen

You are like me, you will die too, but not today:   

you, incommensurate, therefore the hours shine:   

if I say to you “To you I say,” you have not been   

set to music, or broadcast live on the ghost   

radio, may never be an oil painting or

Old Master’s charcoal sketch: you are

a concordance of person, number, voice,

and place, strawberries spread through your name   

as if it were budding shrubs, how you remind me   

of some spring, the waters as cool and clear

(late rain clings to your leaves, shaken by light wind),   

which is where you occur in grassy moonlight:   

and you are a lily, an aster, white trillium

or viburnum, by all rights mine, white star   

in the meadow sky, the snow still arriving

from its earthwards journeys, here where there is   

no snow (I dreamed the snow was you,

when there was snow), you are my right,

have come to be my night (your body takes on   

the dimensions of sleep, the shape of sleep   

becomes you): and you fall from the sky

with several flowers, words spill from your mouth

in waves, your lips taste like the sea, salt-sweet (trees   

and seas have flown away, I call it

loving you): home is nowhere, therefore you,   

a kind of dwell and welcome, song after all,   

and free of any eden we can name

- Reginald Shepherd

 

Morning in the Hills

Morning in the Hills / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68, including shipping!  

sold!

(I've been having trouble with the PayPal buttons recently, so if you want this painting and the button doesn't seem to work, please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com - thank you!)

THE OTHER DAY, I HEARD MYSELF LAUGH, and I realized that I hadn't laughed since Peter died. I hadn't laughed in almost a year. The recognition of that fact shocked me.

And then I felt guilty for laughing, for feeling good enough and happy enough to laugh, when Peter was dead, and not here to laugh with me. 

And then I told myself that he would want me to laugh. He loved to make me laugh, and he did it better and more often than anyone in my life ever has. It's one of the reasons I loved him so much. He was gruff, and often, a curmudgeon. He was a Finn, and he had depression, and was often quite dark. But still, he was the funniest person I've met - partly because he was so smart. And so twisted.

And he could be so silly. Here's a photo montage he made of himself - for no apparent reason - just because it made him laugh, and he knew it would make me laugh, too. 

I've laughed a few more times since, and it feels awkward in my heart. But I will think of him in his pink tutu, in his many hats, in his white boots, making his dry, hilarious comments about people and the world, and I'll know that he wants me to live, to enjoy my life, to sing, to sleep well and eat well and probably most of all, to laugh. 

***

A Last Thought

    October

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

- Robert Frost

One Good Tern

One Good Tern / Oil on black canvas /  5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold!

THESE DAYS, I FIND MYSELF wondering about white privilege and how I exhibit it. About whether I am racist. Whether I, as a white person - and particularly a white person in the South - am blind to racism. 

While I don't think that I am racist, I do recognize that I have always felt more or less apart from people of color. I never heard the term "white privilege" until a couple months ago, though I am certainly a full-blown example of it.

I grew up well-off in a mostly white town, and went to majority-white schools. I've had a few black friends over the years, mostly school and work friendships that pretty much ended when life and jobs separated us - the same as most of my school and work friendships with white people. 

As an adult, I've lived in several black neighborhoods, and never thought twice about moving in. In one, I was memorably the butt of much laughter at my reaction to chitterlings (ick) shared with me by one of my black neighbors. Frankly, I had the same response to turnip greens shared with me by a white neighbor here. 

I admit to being fearful when I encounter groups of black male teenagers - but I am just as fearful when I encounter groups of white male teenagers. 

I've painted people of color, black and brown, and have sold paintings to people of all shades. One of my grandsons is half-black, and his son, my great-grandson, is, as well.

Here in majority-white Wachapreague, John, who is half of the public works department, is black, and calls me "Miss Carrie," or he did, until Peter died. Now, he calls me "Carrie." I don't know John's last name - but I don't know JD's last name, either. He is white, and is the other half of the department. He has always called me "Carrie."

Yesterday, I heard an African-American man in the post office talking about a change of address form, and I found that I wanted to barge into the conversation and introduce myself and welcome him - but I thought that might be disrespectful. And I couldn't tell from the part of the conversation I heard if he were coming to town or leaving.

I realized later that if he had been a white man, I'd never have considered butting in. And if he had been a woman of either race, I'd have jumped in with both feet.

Today, the men from Thornton Services came and installed my new heat pump/air conditioner, and I asked one of them (they were brown-skinned, probably native Spanish speakers from who knows where) whether I should give him the check (a larger check than most I've written in my lifetime) or whether I should drop it by the office.

He said I could do either, and went on to say that some homeowners didn't trust him and his co-workers with the big checks. He didn't say it with any heat, just related it as something that happened. I gave him the check. 

So I tangle myself up in this a little bit, but when I examine myself, I think I find that I am not a racist - but that I could be more aware. I believe I am a person who has grown up with the sort of race blindness that comes with white privilege.  I could be more active in the fight for racial equality. I will pay attention, and work to become more aware. I hope I am already on my way. 

***
A Last Thought

Risk

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took to blossom.

- Anais Nin

Mountain Sunset

Mountain Sunset / oil on canvas / 8x24 / $185 including shipping

sold! 

AGAIN, I FIND MYSELF TIRED, at this not-so-late end to the day. I did get up early, a little after 4:30. I transplanted some tomato plants and watered the gardens, and then Liesl and the dogs and I walked for an hour. 

I did a WalMart pick-up, attended a Zoom meeting, painted a little, talked to my counselor, then painted again until late in the afternoon. I loaded the van with paintings to bring to one of my patrons tomorrow. Now I am watering the garden again and wondering why I am so tired. But when I list it all out like this, it looks like enough to make anyone tired. 

Still, I recognize that underneath everything, I am indeed tired. Losing Peter has taken from me a few degrees of - what? - youth? hope? optimism? energy? all of the above?

My days used to begin with the thought of the joy of a day of painting and cooking and doing stuff around the house. Now, my first thought is that he is gone, and I am here alone. It is not all dark. Not all sad and dismal. But I wonder sometimes if I will ever be truly happy again. If I will ever feel the joy I used to feel. 

So I will take it easy now, put off the rest of the day's tasks until tomorrow, have a good dinner and revive my energy. It is all part of the process, I know. I just want the process to be easier.

***

 For Today

"In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks." 

- John Muir

Jackrabbit

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

sold!

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, he's not a bird? Whatever you do, don't tell him! 

***

Peonies

ON A COLD AND GRAY MEMORIAL DAY MORNING, I met some other painters in a peony farm in Exmore and we set up to paint. The peony season was pretty much past, though the flowers that remained were incredibly beautiful - deep fuschia, palest pink, brilliant white, and rich with petals fragile as torn tissue. Gorgeous.

Here are two paintings from the day.

Above, Peony Rows, oil on black canvas, 4x12, $88 unframed, includes shipping

Peony World / Oil on black canvas / 11x14 unframed / sold

***
For Today
(a long one, but worthwhile)

Peonies

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready

to break my heart

as the sun rises,

as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open - 

pools of lace, 

white and pink -

and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes 

into the curls,

craving the sweet sap,

taking it away

to their dark, underground cities -

and all day

under the shifty wind,

as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies

and tip their fragrance to the air,

and rise,

their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness

gladly and lightly

and there it is again - 

beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.

Do you love this world? 

Do you cherish your humble and silky life?

Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,

and softly,

and exclaiming of their dearness,

fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,

their eagerness

to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are

nothing, forever? 

- Mary Oliver

House Wren

House Wren / Oil on black canvas / 5x7  / $68 includes shipping

sold!  

REMEMBER THE TIME BEFORE what my brother calls The Great Confinement? Of course you do - even I do, with my ever-faultier memory.

Do you remember shaking hands? Hugging? Sharing food at restaurants? Restaurants themselves?

This morning, I found myself thinking about some of the small things - like using paper towels with abandon! Oh, sure, frugal me would go a little nutty when Peter would yank off five or six paper towels to dry his hands, but aside feeding my Scottish penny-pinchingness, it was unimportant. 

Now, I find myself drying my hands on a dishtowel, usually (I despise this) - and putting damp paper towels in a basket to dry out and be used again, to wipe the floor or clean up canine indiscretions, or wipe off my palette knives. 

I haven't seen a roll of paper towels for sale here on the Shore since the beginning of March. 

And speaking of the dogs, it now falls to me to do the, uh, prospecting. At regular intervals, I walk the yard with a plastic bag and a little scooper and see what I can mine. I remember when this was the nastiest thing that could happen to my hands. Now, compared to the Covid, the nuggets seem benign. 

Some Facebook posts that have been going around have made me laugh - "Remember when we were all terrified of Romaine lettuce?" and this one - "Every time I sneeze now, I wonder if it's allergies, or if I have only five days to live."

I usually don't talk about all this virus stuff in the blog, but the paper towel thing got me going this morning. I am glad there is a little bit of a light side, from time to time. 

***

Be My Patron! 

FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS of Peggy Guggenheim, Charles Saatchi, Paul Durand-Ruel and flotillas of Medicis, you can become a patron of the arts! Well, you probably already are a patron of the arts - but you could become a patron of THIS artist. 

Here's how it works - you sign up to give me bits of your hard-earned cash, and you get goodies, including first dibs on my sales and my collections, free shipping on everything, even big paintings, and the delights of being in my inner circle. My patrons often give me ideas and criticism, and it's always wonderfully beneficial to me.

Best of all, you have the extra added joy of knowing that you're helping to keep me going. 

I have five patrons right now, and I rejoice in each and every one of them. 

To find out more, please click here, to visit my Blue-Sky Patronage Plans page

***

For Today

"Paradoxically though it might seem, it is nonetheless true 

that life imitates art far more than art imitates life." 

- Oscar Wilde

Bluebird Landing

Bluebird Landing / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68 includes shipping

sold! 

TONIGHT,  AS I WITE THIS, I am tired. My 64th birthday, my first without Peter, was Saturday, and while friends and family helped make it as happy as it possibly could be, I am glad it's over. It was the last of the first-year-without-him celebrations. And so they are done, and I am thankful.

When I went out to the studio in the morning, carrying a vase of roses to paint, and carrying my laptop, my coffee and my phone, and with the dogs running and romping around me, I heard voices singing Happy Birthday. I saw my friend Liz Ford, with two of her friends, walking across the yard. Liz is from Harborton, and was in Wachapreague playing pickle ball on our court, and the three were headed out for a walk when they saw me. Liz knew it was my birthday, and so they sang and waved and gave me long-distance hugs. 

Later in the day, my friend Liesl had a small party for me at her house, with a few friends from the neighborhood. She made two delicious cakes, and people brought presents, even though I asked them not to. 

My family called, and left video and voice-mail Happy Birthday songs. Erika called and we had a good, long talk. Ashton, my youngest grandson, gave me beautiful earrings that he bought with his own money from his Home Depot job. My sister sent me granola. Hundreds of Facebook friends wished me a happy day. Today, another friend brought cake, and there were more Happy Birthday voice mails, and people sending love and good wishes from all over. 

Truly, I am lucky to have such people in my life, who care so much about me. Thank you, all of you. You made it as happy a day as it could be. But it was exhausting - and I am glad it's over. 

Let this day, Sunday, the day after all the celebrating, be the first day of a new year. The first day of a better year - for all of us. 

***

For Today

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and will be lost." 

- Martha Graham

Raven

 Raven / oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68 including shipping

THIS MOTHER'S DAY, Erika gave me what might be the best gift I've ever had.

After Peter died, I gave her his beloved Guild guitar. She brought it to have some repairs made, got the strings from it and had a jeweler friend of hers and mine make earrings from those strings.

They are circles, representing - according to a slip of paper in the box - "notions of wholeness and original perfection, the self, the infinite, eternity, timelessness and all cyclic movement - the infinite nature of energy, and the inclusivity of the universe.

From each circle dangles a garnet, which is Erika's and Peter's birthstone. It is also "known as a spiritual stone of higher thinking and self-empowerment. It is a stone of prosperity, abundance, strength and safety."

She also included in the package her original drawings, and the rest of the strings.

Of course, I wept.

Now I will wear these earrings and they will help me heal, help me get on with life, bringing Peter and Erika with me, the past and the future, as bright and round and eternal as can be. Every time I wear them, they will remind me of the best of life - love and faith and hope and family. And art.

Can you see? Just past the wrinkles and just before the color-growing-out hair...

***

An Invitation

THE MARK TWAIN HOUSE, in Hartford, CT, is a great place, important, and around the corner from where my brother and his family live. It is hosting a series of online literary events during The Great Confinement, as Rand calls it (Rand is Rand Richards Cooper, my brother). 

On Tuesday, May 12, at 7 p.m., Rand - who is a terrific writer and a longtime restaurant reviewer - will be reading a memoir essay about restaurants. 

To incentivize people to attend online on Tuesday, Rand is pledging to donate $5 for each person who registers for the event. The money will go to CHEF, the Connecticut Hospitality Employee Relief Fund, which gives grants to out-of-work restaurant employees. Rand will donate up to $1,000. 

So - it's for a good cause, you can make my brother pay up, and in addition, you'll hear a thoughtful and engaging essay (I've heard this one - it'd good!) 

Here's the link to register - https://www.crowdcast.io/e/rand-cooper-on-listening/register

***

For Today

Biological Reflection

A girl whose cheeks are covered in paint

Has an advantage with me over one whose ain't. 

- Ogden Nash

(OK, I am sure he's talking about makeup, but I prefer to think he's talking about paint.)

Little Chickadee

Little Chickadee / Oil on black canvas / 4x4 unframed / $38 including shipping

sold! 

IT SEEMS LIKE A LIFETIME AGO that I drove to Arizona to visit my dad and stepmother, participate, in a way, in the Tubac show, and see my friends out there. (It was the end of January). 

A jeweler friend from Pennsylvania flew out to spend some time in the sun, go to the big Gem and Mineral Show, and take some workshops there. 

She stayed for a week, and when she left, packed some stuff in my van for me to bring home. We usually see each other once every six or eight weeks, at her place or mine, or at one of the many shows we do together.

Today, I packed her stuff in a box and sent it off to her in Pennsylvania. Honestly, it feels like I might never see her again. Today, for whatever reason, the quarantine/isolation got to me, and for a while it felt like I would never see anyone again. Or hug anyone again. Or be hugged. 

So I did chores, and I cleaned the house and then I hugged the dogs and held them close and reminded myself that it's all going to be OK. And then I went out to the studio and painted this sweet little bird, and felt myself fly off a bit, toward the sun. 

***

Gratitude

TODAY, I AM GRATEFUL for my friends, who pull me up when I am down, who point out the beauty of the world to me, who take time out of their days to reach out to me, and make me laugh, and assure me that yes, I will see them again someday. 

And you? What are you grateful for today? 

***

For Today

Yes there is fear.

Yes there is isolation.

Yes there is panic buying.

Yes there is sickness.

Yes there is even death.

But,

They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise

You can hear the birds again.

They say that after just a few weeks of quiet

The sky is no longer thick with fumes

But blue and grey and clear.

They say that in the streets of Assisi

People are singing to each other

across the empty squares,

keeping their windows open

so that those who are alone

may hear the sounds of family around them.

They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland

is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.

Today a young woman I know

is busy spreading fliers with her number 

through the neighborhood

So that the elders may have someone to call on.

Today, churches, synagogues, mosques and temples

are preparing to welcome

and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary. 

All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting

All over the world people are looking at their neighbors in a new way

All over the world people are waking up to a new reality

To how big we really are.

To how little control we really have.

To what really matters.

To Love.

So we pray and we remember that

Yes there is fear.

But there does not have to be hate.

Yes there is isolation.

But there does not have to be loneliness.

Yes there is panic buying.

But there does not have to be meanness.

Yes there is sickness.

But there does not have to be disease of the soul.

Yes there is even death.

But there can always be a rebirth of love.

Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.

Today, breathe.

Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic

The birds are singing again

The sky is clearing,

Spring is coming,

And we are always encompassed by Love.

Open the windows of your soul

And though you may not be able

to touch across the empty square,

Sing.

- Father Richard Hendrik, Ireland

March 13, 2020

-

Crow Landing

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

sold! 

DURING THIS TIME of isolation and quiet, I've been painting a lot. 

For years, I've painted pretty much every day - but before this, my painting days were often broken up. Shopping, cooking, cleaning. Visits with friends, lunches out, meetings, trips to the Y, and to Virginia Beach, and heaven knows what else. I'd paint four or five hours a day. Now, many days, it's nearly twice that. 

I say "I paint," but of course, it's not all painting. I inventory and order materials and supplies. I blacken and wire canvases. I look for subjects to paint. But if I am in the studio for nine or 10 hours a day - and often, these days, I am - I'm painting for eight or nine of those hours. And I feel like I'm making progress, that all this time is amounting to something. Taking me somewhere. 

Looking for a blank notebook yesterday, I ran across a ledger from 2009. For the first few months of the year, I'd listed all the paintings I'd made, and there were 23 or 24 each month. They were mostly small - and cheap! 

I am cheered to see that I'm continuing that sort of pace. This year, I have photographs of more than 50 bird paintings I've made so far, and I haven't counted the other pieces I've finished. 

By the time I started out in this painting life, I had 25 years of newspaper experience. Twenty-five years of daily deadlines. When I floundered at Being an Artist, at the beginning of this journey, I sought success in what I knew, and set deadlines. I required myself to make at least one painting a day. 

Over the years, this sort of productivity has helped me develop my voice. It's helped me build the muscles I rely on to push all the crap aside right now and forge ahead. It helps me try new things when I am pretty sure I have the strength to do the lifting. And it helps me know when that is. 

A new painting I finished last week, the start of a series of people talking while they are walking their dogs, is one that I've been thinking of for a few years. At the time, I knew I didn't have the chops for these paintings. Last week, I thought, I do. And so I set out to make this painting - and I love the way it came out.

So if you are a painter, an artist, a writer,  musician, whatever - if you are seeking a creative outlet and want to sharpen your abilities - the best thing you can do, I think, is to produce. Good, bad, middling, whatever - the point is to make the art, write the sentence, compose the music, and go from there. Look at what's good about the piece - what you like about it - and what you'd change. And then, in the next one, which will happen today or this afternoon or tomorrow, change that thing. And then do it again. And again. And again. 

And again. 

***

Gratitude

In this time of loss and now of isolation, I work hard to be grateful. I thought I'd share a gratitude with you all each day, at least for a while. 

If you'd like to share things that you're grateful for, you can use the comments below, or email me... I'd love to hear what you're grateful for. So here is today's: 

Though Peter is gone, I am grateful, so very grateful that I found him, 

and that I had him as my husband since 1988.

***

For Today

"There is no word for art. We say it is to transfer something from the real to the unreal. I am an owl, and I am a happy owl. I like to make people happy and everything happy. I am the light of happiness and I am a dancing owl." 

- Kenojuak Ashevak

Egret

Egret / Oil on black wood / about 2x5 / 

unframed with sawtooth hanger / $38 including shipping

sold

SPRING HAS HIT ME with a wave of sadness, and like so many of these waves, it was one I hadn't expected or prepared for. 

Peter loved the springtime. It was his favorite, and he reveled in it. Always, when I was in Arizona in February, he would send me photos of the daffodils blooming on the sheltered, sunny side of the house, and tell me to have heart, that spring was coming. I knew how much he looked forward to it. 

As March turned into April, he would walk around the yard, drive around town, or to Quinby Bridge, or to the store, and he would notice everything, and report it all to me. Buds on the lilac bush, a spring bird at the feeder, the Burnhams' weeping cherry blossoming in graceful splendor, the forsythia everywhere about to burst - he loved it all, and loved living in a place where spring arrived so early. 

His love of spring and his constant descriptions of it instilled a similar awareness in me, and as the chilly days climb into warmth, I find myself noticing the most minute changes, and missing him in each one. 

***

Thought for the Day

The Middle

When I remember bygone days

I think how evening follows morn;

So many I loved were not yet dead

So many I love were not yet born. 

- Ogden Nash

OK, I will quit with the Ogden Nash poems now, but I hope you've enjoyed them. He was one of my mother's favorite poets, and while purists will no doubt look upon these as doggerel, I have to say I love them, as I love any poem that makes me smile or makes me think. 

Tufted Titmouse (Tee Hee)

Tufted Titmouse / Oil on black canvas / 5x5 / $68 including shipping

Sold

LAST NIGHT, DURING of my many awakenings, I let the dogs out and in, and made my way back to bed. 

By the time I got there, Lulu had shoved herself between the bedspread and the blanket. I like to keep the dogs on top of the bedspread, but it was about 2 AM, and I just didn't have it in me to fight her, so I slid in between the sheets. 

And Lulu snuggled up. She pushed her hard little dogsbody up against me, and through the sheet and the blanket, I could feel her warmth and her joy, and I fell back to sleep easily. 

This morning, I was thinking about it all, and realized that Lulu has a special gift, and it is that she is a great snuggler. 

I went through the dogs, then, thinking of their special gifts - Doc's is loyalty, Koko's is love, Woody's is persistence. Then I turned to people - who are more complicated, and so, I think, it is harder to isolate their special gifts. Peter's was patience, I think. Mine, like Koko's, is love, I believe. 

What about you? What is your special gift? 

***

A Growing Flock

A lovely woman who collects my paintings has, like many of you, been very enthusiastic about the bird paintings. Here is her bird wall early in the process (above), and then later. 

Isn't it wonderful? 

***

Thought for Today

The Dog

The truth I do not stretch or shove

When I state the dog is full of love

I've also found, by actual test

A wet dog is the lovingest. 

- Ogden Nash

Green-Headed Tanager

Green-headed Tanager / oil on black canvas / 4x4 / $48 including shipping

sold

THOUGHT I'D POST a bright little bird to start the week. This is a bird I've never seen - it lives in southeastern Brazil, in eastern Paraguay and northern Argentina - places I think I will never visit in my lifetime. 

I used to think I'd see all the world. Now, I know I won't. And I have to admit that that is OK. There are plenty of adventures to be had here - and in places just a bit away from here. And there is plenty of time to have those adventures. 

In my life, with Peter and alone, I've had lots of adventures. I've seen places, we lived places, we traveled together and apart - and in this art life, this post-Peter life, I will continue to stretch and travel and chase the world. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but sometime in the not too distant future. 

And that knowledge makes it easier to get through these very close-to-home weeks. 

***

Thought for the Day

"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work." 

- Emile Zola

Little Kingfisher

Little Kingfisher / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

THIS VERY QUIET early-pandemic life, uninterrupted by people, by visitors, by society, this is the kind of life that Peter often lived, I realized this morning. 

When I was home, of course, there was the noise and the clutter and the colors and the TV and the music and the gabbing and squawking and tweeting that is me. There were the people I invited over and the events I dragged him to, but even then, even with me here, most of the time, he was in his quiet office, making art or tying flies or reading - without turning on the television or playing tunes or talking to anyone on the phone. 

And when I wasn't here, this was how it was. Like this day, today. Quiet. He was alone, but not lonely. He was not pressed for time or conversation. He filled the days with thinking and creating and being with the dogs. 

This morning, in the quiet of this small house, where I have been alone for days and days, I realized how much Peter loved his quiet, solitary hours, and how glad I am that he was able to have them. 

***

Thought for the Day

The Kingfisher

loud whistles at night

a kingfisher on the prowl -

river fish are still

- Tania Kitchin

Another Runner

Another Runner / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / unframed / $68 including shipping

THE TUBAC SHOW starts on Wednesday, and while I am showing my art during the show, I am not actually IN it. I will be on the patio of Sweet Poppy, a lovely and very fun shop that sells some art, including mine. Marsha, who owns the store, invited me to set up there when she heard about Peter's death. She thought it would be easier, and different, and that I'd still sell well. 

We will see about the third part - it is always a gamble, no matter where you are - but the first two already are true. 

I was surprised, however, at how sad I felt when I saw the big banner for the show and realized I wouldn't be in it, in the hubbub, the chaos, the bright and loud and crowded community of artists that is any show. Even now, writing this, it makes me a little sad. 

But this is my year to try new things, to simplify - and, I guess, to be sad - or at least to feel, and feel deeply. At least from time to time. 

***

For Today

"Art is like therapy; what comes up is what comes up. It may be dark, but that's what comes up. You may want to keep some of it in a drawer... but never judge it." 

- Nick Bantock

Heron

Heron / 5x7 / Oil on canvas / unframed / $68 including shipping

THE HERON GLIDES, even ascending, it seems, even while pushing its wings, it glides, still as night falling. It speaks to me of dark, quiet corners. Of memory. Of a time before history, when silence was a monumental asset. 

In small water, even - the creek by the side of the road - the heron stands and stalks and catches, then rises on its huge wings, successful - showing me that victories need not be large, nor beauty proscribed. 

***

For Today

I'VE MADE IT to Arizona, and Dad and I went out the other day to see the Javelinas de Tubac exhibit, which is all over town. 

Javelinas are a kind of wild pig that's found in the southwest. I've seen many of them in Tubac, sometimes with their babies, which are adorable. The grown javelinas are nor quite as cute, and can be real pests, digging up gardens, rooting around on property, etc. 

The Chamber of Commerce and the Tubac Center of the Arts had a local artist make maybe two dozen blank javelina statues, then invited Tubac artists to paint them. The statues are located all over town. They are all for sale, and money raised from the sales supports the Chamber and the arts center. 

Here's a short article on the project (to read it you will have to answer some questions, sorry), and here is a photo of Dad and me by one of the javelinas.