Salt Marsh Morning

Salt Marsh Morning

Oil on black canvas, 10x10, $125

sold

This is the the first of the paintings destined for the 2018 Wachapreague calendar. I think it's fitting that it's our lovely salt marsh, on a clear, bright spring morning, before the world has woken up.

The marsh is what drew me first to Wachapreague. I arrived on an October afternoon, and the thick, golden light had illuminated the marsh, below a sky so clear, so tender blue, it made my heart ache.

Right now, the marsh is a brilliant, soft green, and the water shimmering turquoise. I will paint it soon, in its summer glory. Then will come the fall, when the grass turns deep gold, and the dark boggy earth seems to be at its richest. Winter and spring look much the same on the marsh, as everything sinks in and down in the thin gray light, and all that is living in the marsh rests and gathers energy for the growth and thrill that is the summer here on the Eastern Shore.

You'll be able to get calendars through me, and through Seaside Antiques, here in Wachapreague. I'll let you know when they're available (should be October).

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I'VE BEEN AWAY, at shows up and down the East Coast, and all the way out to Minneapolis and back. I had a great time, met lots of people, sold lots of paintings, and made some new friends. Here are some happy buyers from my trip!

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Dog of the Day

It's Doc, Lulu and Koko, piled up on top of you know who - me! This is after I got back from three-plus weeks on the road. It was the best dogpile I've ever been in! 

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A Final Thought

"Treat a work of art like a prince: Let it speak to you first." 

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Manny, Moe and Jeff

Manny, Moe and Jeff

Oil on canvas, 36x60

Please click here to email me for price and availability

This painting started its life looking a little different. The sky was pretty much the same, and the road to the left was pretty much the same, and the mountains were sort of the same, but the cows were smaller, the trees were smaller, the water was smaller, and the colors - still a little out of my comfort zone - were a little more quiet. 

I wanted to like it, but just couldn't, even though people liked it, and I was going to paint over it. Instead, I really looked. I searched for what was bothering me, for why I wasn't in love with this cowscape. It took a while, but it came to me, and I was able to make the changes that are making it work. 

This is a process that's happened a few times to me now. It is still a new process, of improving rather than tossing out. And it's a process I hope I can bring to other parts of my life, including my own sense of self. 

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Shows! 

I'm sending a big thank you to everyone who came to the shows this summer, took the time to look at my paintings and talk with me! And a special thanks to all of you who bought paintings! Each sale is a miracle, and I appreciate each one very much. 

I'll be on the road for a few weeks, starting tomorrow. Here's my schedule: 

Stamford, CT, July 29-30, Harbor Point, Booth 20

Uptown Art Festival, Minneapolis, MN, Aug. 4-6, Booth 3407 on the mall

Mystic Outdoor Art Festival, Mystic, CT, Aug. 12-13, corner of Willow and East Main

and Centerfest, Durham, NC,   Sept. 16-17

Hope to see you there! 

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Dog of the Day

Pals! Saw these guys at the show in State College, PA. 

Want your pet to be the Dog of the Day? Send me a jpg at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

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A Final Thought

“Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. … 

It is a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are the spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world's greatest soprano. 

Not everyone can be the artist. 

There have to be those who witness the art, 

who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see.” 

- Ann Patchett

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Feels Like Home

Feels Like Home

Oil on black canvas, 16x16 

Please click here to email me for price and availability

I get mental blocks about the names of things - and sometimes of people, too.  I seem to have a particularly slippery spot in my brain for the names of shade plants. I just had to look up "hydrangea," which is what these are, in the painting above.

I can describe them completely, in terms of color, scent, the feel of the blossoms and leaves - but I can't seem to hold their name in my head.

The same holds true for astilbes and hostas. I love all these plants, love to see them, love to grow them, love to paint them - but I just can't remember them.

Maybe part of painting for me is to strengthen my visual memory, in places where my brain memory just doesn't make it?

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Wickford Art Festival

Unless the hydrangea painting sells beforehand, I will have it with me at the Wickford Art Festival this weekend, July 8-9. I'm Booth 82, on Elam Street at the junction with Spinx. It's such a fun show, in a beautiful little town. For information, check out WickfordArt.org.

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Dog of the Day

Cute! 

Want your pet to be the Dog of the Day?

 Send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com 

(ps, your pet doesn't have to be a dog...) 

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A Final Thought

"Color is my daylong obsession, joy and torment." 

- Claude Monet

Today's Forecast

 Today's Forecast 

Oil on canvas, 15x60

sold

I was inspired to paint "Today's Forecast" from a photograph that a collector of my paintings posted on Facebook.

The photo was of her own cows, whom I've met - and painted, too! And she ended up buying the painting, so it feels like it has gone full circle.

I love the photograph so much, though, that I might make another somewhat like it, in a different format. We shall see.

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Speaking of Cows

One of my paintings has been chosen as the art T-shirt for the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts! This is a huge show, one of the top shows in the country, and I am honored that a painting of mine has been selected. 

The festival takes place July 13-16 in State College, PA. I'll be in Booth O-20, on Fairmount Avenue. For more information, and to reach the store where you can buy a T-shirt, please click here. 

The weekend before the State College show, July 8-9, I'll be at the Wickford, RI, Fine Arts Festival. I'll be on Elam Street. 

This is a marvelous fine-art show, in one of the most charming villages in Rhode Island. I'm really looking forward to it! For more information on this show, please click here. 

And the final weekend in July, the 29th and 30th, I'll be at a show in Stamford, CT, a new show for me. For info on that one, please click here. 

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Dog of the Day

It's Loki, a sweetie who lives with a dear friend of mine in Arivaca, Arizona. 

Bet he's staying inside this summer! It's been 110 and hotter out there. 

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A Final Thought

"Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods, 

like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be 

many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue." 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If Wishes Were

If Wishes Were

Oil on black canvas, 40x40

Please click here to contact me for price and availability 

This year, this solstice, I am feeling the full, sweet breadth of summer. The days stretch out, thick with heat and humidity, a mist of it in the distance, softening the edges of the future, the edges of the past.

This solstice, I feel the sweet breath of summer, close on my neck, brushing my hair, pushing hot against my arms and feet and broad, working shoulders. I stand out in the daylight, under brilliant sunshine, in this June that feels like July, and the heat pushes into my bones, and draws the sweat and salt from me as it pulls the paintings from my heart and from my soul.

This solstice, this spring, this summer, has been about flowers, the warm deep earth, the grass growing like thoughts in a sleepless night. These days of heat and light have brought a bounty of beauty to me, and I've seen this world in ways I never had, in the slimmer, slighter, paler weeks of winter.

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Dog of the Day

This shy guy didn't mind the art show, but felt safer hiding behind his human.

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A Final Thought

"If it weren't for greed, intolerance, hate, passion and murder, 

you would have no works of art, no great buildings, no medical science, no Mozart, 

no Van Gogh, no Muppets and no Louis Armstrong." 

- Jasper Fforde 

Blue Evening

Blue Evening

Oil on canvas, 24x36

sold

Between my recent show in Northampton, MA, and my show in Roanoke, VA, I got sick. Felt it coming on, in my nose first, then my throat, then, as I was driving from Rhode Island to Roanoke, I felt it grabbing hold of me and digging in. Ugh. I got sicker and sicker, the closer I came to Roanoke. It was a long drive - and I think it was a beautiful drive, too, though most of the time, I was concentrating too hard to notice. 

The thing I did notice was the afternoon slipping into evening, the light slipping into shadow, and the brilliance of the day's sunshine slipping into soft shades of blue and purple. I held the image with me through an encounter with a bad hotel and a move to a new one, through a hot set-up in Roanoke, through the show, through my sickness and the heat and the sweat and the happy sales, and when I got home, I painted this. 

I was short on canvases, and painted it over a painting of people skiing. The skiing piece was one I'd always liked, but it had never sold, and so I sacrificed it to "Blue Evening." It makes an even more interesting surface than usual! 

This piece sold so quickly because it went out in an early email to my patrons. That's one of the advantages of my burgeoning patron program - you get to see the pieces before everyone else! There are other rewards, too, in addition to knowing that you're helping me live my dream. To check it out, visit the Patronage Plan page on my website, Jacobson Arts, or click here. 

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Dog of the Day

Here's Daisy, an old girl who visited me at the show in Tubac. A word to you dog owners out there... It's probably too hot to take your dog to an art show this summer. It's a mistake I've made, and I will never forget my dear Gus practically keeling over from the heat at an art show I thought he'd enjoy attending. Here's a poster from National Safety Inc.

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A Final Thought

"Art is making something out of nothing, and selling it." 

- Frank Zappa

Sweet Amarillo

I'm setting out on a month of shows, and part of me is dreading it - the driving, the setting up and taking down, the uncertainty - most of me is looking forward to it.

But the same things that fill me with dread fill me with joy, as crazy as that sounds. I love the driving. I enjoy the physical challenge of setting up and taking down. I thrive on the rush of uncertainty, the thrill of making sales, of seeing people fall in love with my paintings.

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A note here... I wrote this just before a string of shows - and I failed to post it! The shows - Paradise City in Northampton, MA; the Sidewalk Art Show in Roanoke, VA; and the Art and Wine Festival in Annapolis, MD, all were good to me. This painting, and many others, sold during these three shows, and I took a weekend off - didn't go, as scheduled to Indianapolis - and painted.

This weekend, I'll be at the Howard Alan Art and Craft show in Huntersville NC, just outside of Charlotte.

After that, it's Fine Art Festival in Wickford, RI, July 8-9, and the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts in State College, PA, July 13-16, then back here for a week or so, and then back to Connecticut for the Stamford Art Festival, July 29-30. Whew!

Thank you so very much to all of you who came to the shows in Northampton, Roanoke and Annapolis, and a special thank you to the folks who bought paintings from me. All of you - buyers, lookers, friends - make this journey possible. And all of you help make it exciting and engaging.

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Dog of the Day

Lulu, on the right, is at the bottom of the heap in the wide world of dogs here at 18 Bayview in Wachapreague. All she wants is to be Koko's best friend. Koko, on the left, wants nothing to do with her. She snarls and growls, but it never goes farther than that. After Koko lets Lulu know that she needs to stay in her place, they almost inevitably curl up and snuggle. 

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A Final Thought

"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, 

those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened." 

- Albert Camus