House Sparrow

House Sparrow / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68, including shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like this painting

LAST WEEK, I heard a spring bird, singing wildly, singing beautifully, repeating her song again and again as night spun off into dawn. 

She made me happy, this one bird, singing as though there were no tomorrows and no yesterdays, as though everything that possibly could be right in the world was indeed right in the world. 

She made me smile, and made me realize that, in my heavy, plodding two-footed, wingless life, in fact, everything is as right as it could possibly be. 

***

Coda

"Ambition is the spur that makes man struggle with destiny. It is heaven's own incentive 

to make purpose great and achievement greater." 

- Donald G. Mitchell

 

White-Throated Sparrow

White-Throated Sparrow / oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68 includes shipping

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TURN YOUR HEAD toward me, little bird. What do you see? A human, maybe someone with food? Someone who could help - or hurt - in equal measure, and yet, you trust - but not so closely that I could reach out and catch you. Trust but be cautious. 

Still, with time and familiarity, you come closer. Not to rest on my hand or my shoulders - I don't have the patience to build that sort of relationship with you (though Peter would have). But you flit nearby, lighting on the clothesline where the bird feeders hang, landing on the ground close to my feet, close to where I stand the bag of bird seed. 

Turn your head toward me, little bird, and take my measure. These days will fly more quickly than either of us could imagine. 

***

For Today

"All paintings are artwork but precious few become works of art, just as the fact that a pianist who can play all the correct notes doesn't assure an inspired performance."

- Peter Fiore

House Sparrow

House Sparrow / Oil on black canvas, 5x7 , unframed / $68 including shipping

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I HAVE TO SAY, this might be my favorite painting that I've done so far in the Bird a Day series. 

Of course, I think that about nearly every one, as I finish, but this time, the feeling has persisted. 

I know how terrible it is to prefer one of your children to the rest - they all have good points, they all have their strengths, the things that make you love them - but this painting just makes me happy. 

I have quite a soft spot in my heart for the little brown birds, the unobtrusive ones who don't call attention to themselves, who don't hammer away, or sing relentlessly, or laugh wildly up in the sky, or kill other birds, or steal their babies. The little brown and gray birds are just a part of the backdrop of life, and I find them beautiful, in the same way that I find that patch at the side of the road at least as gorgeous as the national park a mile away. 

***

For Today

Today

Today I'm flying low and I'm

not saying a word.

I'm letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,

the bees in the garden rumbling a little,

the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.

And so forth.

But I'm taking the day off.

Quiet as a feather.

I hardly move though really I'm traveling

a terrific distance.

Stillness. one of the doors

into the temple.

- Mary Oliver

From "A Thousand Mornings"

White-throated Sparrow

 

White-throated Sparrow / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68 includes shipping

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ALL OVER TOWN - and town is all I've seen - spring is flowering. My favorite trees are the pinks, from the palest weeping cherry to the vivid fuschia of the redbuds to the azaleas, screaming with color, just starting to come now.

The dogwoods - vivid, green-tipped white - are beginning to bloom. My daffodils have come and gone, but they are the earliest in town, and on other streets, the dogs and Liesl and I see other daffodils blooming in their cheerful way. And behind everything, the grass is green and thick and lush. 

Before long, the blossoms will have turned to leaves. The summer's heat and sun will thin and brown the grass. The daffodils will bend and wither and make room for the summer's heat-loving plants. And life, I imagine, will be back to normal. 

I sit outside in these warm spring evenings and watch the dogs run around the yard. I inspect the lilacs, which are weeks from blooming, and the hydrangeas, which are even more weeks from blooming, and I linger in the sweet, soft air. Of course, I think of Peter, and it is always with a sense of loss - mine and his, both - but I can see progress. My thoughts are not always colored by sadness. 

***

Gratitude

I AM GRATEFUL for Liesl, my Austrian neighbor, a dedicated and long-time walker. She has encouraged me to walk with her, and has the patience and kindness to suggest we bring the dogs, too. 

What are you grateful for today? You may add in the comments below, or drop me an email. 

***

For Today

"When I get to heaven, I'm gonna shake God's hand

Thank him for more blessings than one man can stand

Then I'm gonna get a guitar and start a rock-n-roll band

Check into a swell hotel; ain't life grand?"

- John Prine, who died on Tuesday from the corona virus

Sparrow

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

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AS I AM SITTING HERE in the kitchen, posting this painting of this plain little sparrow (who I think is adorable), The Today Show folks are talking about the no-longer-Prince Harry and no-longer-Princess Megan. 

For some reason, I begin to wonder if maybe, at one point, sparrows were the royalty of the bird world, and then they turned it down, walked away, leaving the glory to the eagles and cardinals and the other big, flashy, famous birds. 

And now, they are just happy to be sparrows. 

Seems possible, doesn't it? 

***

FOR THOSE OF YOU who receive this blog by email, I apologize about the illegibility of the  Martin Luther King Jr. speech yesterday. If you want to read it - and really, it's worth it - please go to my actual blog - carriejacobson.blogspot.com - and you should be able to read it there. It took me forever to get it right on the site - never occurred to me that the emailed version would not change the type and background. Sorry! 

***

For Today

"Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark."

-Radindranath Tagore

Little Wing

Little Wing /  oil on black canvas, 5x7, unframed, $68 including shipping

available - please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

LAST NIGHT, when I let the dogs out, I heard Canada geese calling, their cries ululating, thin, eerie, wavering loudly through the wintry air. They call me to the past, to other cold nights, in Idaho, in Montana, in Maine, nights that could not have been darker, more strewn with stars.

We picked out the easy constellations, watched the greenish dances of the Northern Lights, marveled at the distant glow and blur of the Milky Way, and counted dozens - or hundreds or thousands? - of meteors shooting across the black infinity.

And I thought that it would never stop. That these shared, clear nights would be as regular as the comings and goings of the birds, as typical, as predictable, as unending.

***

A Thought for the Day

GUY WILKINS WAS an artist who lived here in Wachapreague. He died just about the same time we moved here, and I have always, always been sorry that I never met him, never painted with him.

Friends on the Shore here have paintings of his, and I wish I did, too. His paintings are bright and colorful, cheery and different and unusual. I have a postcard of one of the general store here in town, and I look at it almost daily, loving its color, its attitude and its odd perspective.

Guy Wilkins also wrote poems, and I'd like to share one with you here. It is from his book, "Day Moon."

Derelicts

What a full blown beauty you were
That day we first set sail
We had lavished every spar and every rail
With the best in varnish
And the brass we thought would never tarnish
And the gloss would never pale

Now look at you
Warped and twisted
Like the rest of us
With the brass we thought would never tarnish,
Tarnished
And the luster somehow vanished
Oh I wish they could have seen us
You and I, when we were young


To see paintings by Guy Wilkins, please visit http://www.guywilkinsartist.com/