Cardi B

Cardi B / Oil on blue canvas / 5x7 unframed $70, including shipping

I RARELY PAINT on any color other than black, but I am using the Bird A Day project as a platform for experimentation, and that includes trying paintings on different backgrounds. So this little guy is on blue. What do you think?

The project also involves my efforts with technology - and I am, as usual, feeling my way through. So if you click the button here and it doesn't bring you to PayPal, please get in touch - email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com, or call or text at 860-442-0246. 

The button won't work if the painting has been sold. I will do my best to let you know when the painting has sold, but sometimes, I'm in the car or off the grid, and there will be a delay. And if you don't get this bird, there will be another on Monday. 

Thank you for participating in the Bird A Day project! 

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I AM DOING as well as can be expected, given the loss of my husband in October, 86 days ago. My friends, my family, my collectors, even friends of friends have been remarkable, reaching out with kindness, condolences, prayers, generosity. Thank you, all of you, thank you so much. 

The box above is about the size of a shoebox, and as you can see, is filled to the brim with cards. Though is was heart-warming and life-affirming to open all of these cards, it also was emotionally difficult. I opened them as I was able, and on Jan. 1, finished. I found the bag of mail I thought I had recycled without opening. So, if you sent me a card, I received it, and I thank you for it. You are more giving, more wonderful, more numerous than I ever could have imagined. 

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For Today

I Am Offering This Poem

By Jimmy Santiago Baca

I am offering this poem to you

since I have nothing else to give.

Keep it like a warm coat

when winter comes to cover you,

or like a pair of thick socks

the cold cannot bite through,

                         I love you,

I have nothing else to give you,

so it is a pot full of yellow corn

to warm your belly in winter,

it is a scarf for your head, to wear

over your hair, to tie up around your face,

                         I love you,

Keep it, treasure this as you would

if you were lost, needing direction,

in the wilderness life becomes when mature;

and in the corner of your drawer,

tucked away like a cabin or hogan

in dense trees, come knocking,

and I will answer, give you directions,

and let you warm yourself by this fire,

rest by this fire, and make you feel safe

                         I love you,

It’s all I have to give,

and all anyone needs to live,

and to go on living inside,

when the world outside

no longer cares if you live or die;

remember,

                         I love you.

Bluebird

Bluebird

Oil on black canvas, 5x7, $70

To buy this painting, click the button below - 

or email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com, or text or call me at 860-442-0246

sold

THIS IS THE SECOND DAY of my Bird A Day project, which will take place weekdays in 2020, for as long as it seems that it should go. The bird paintings will all be small and unframed, and will mostly cost $70, which will include shipping.

I think this is a fun project, and is one that I can manage, as I finish the 101 Dogs project and navigate through this, my new and solo life. I will be doing shows, but not as many as I have in past years. I will be selling more on line, more from my studio, more from my galleries, and doing workshops in person and online. All will happen as time and healing permits.

I will be posting the paintings here first, and then on my Bird a Day Facebook page.

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I WRITE THIS on the first day os 2020, as the sun begins to go down on the first day of the new year. I've been up since 4 a.m., and I am tired - but pleased beyond reckoning that this is a new year, as artificial as that distinction might be.

It is a year that holds no memories of Peter, nothing to miss or mourn. We did not wait up for midnight last night. We did not watch for fireworks, we did not share breakfast or lunch or talk about what we would have for dinner.

I thought about him, and I missed him, but I didn't have to miss him being in 2020, being a part of this new, fragile year.

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A Final Thought 

Sonnet I by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied 

Who told me time would ease me of my pain!

I miss him in the weeping of the rain;

I want him at the shrinking of the tide;

The old snows melt from every mountain-side,

And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;

But last year’s bitter loving must remain                                   *

Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.

There are a hundred places where I fear

to go - so with his memory they brim.

And entering with relief some quiet place

Where never fell his foot or shone his face

I say, “There is no memory of him here!”

And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

My Ruined Heart

My Ruined Heart

The days pass, endless and endlessly, longer than they should be, longer than they are. Longer than any days of my life. 

My family has been my backbone. Our daughter Erika, heart heavy with her own grief after witnessing Peter's death, has kept me upright, with love and calls, actions and caring, and the help of her husband Paul. My sister and brother traveled to Wachapreague, and spent days with me, comforting me, doing with me tasks that I could not do alone. Their families have reached out in big ways and small to help me through this agony. My dad and stepmother have reached out across the miles with love and support and hearts filled with parental caring and help.

My Eastern Shore friends have come, once I became able to see people, and have brought gifts and food and flowers and the salve of distraction and conversation. My friends from across the country and around the world have sent me letters and notes, cards and gifts, posted their love and support on social media and reached out, over and over, during this awful time.

I am truly humbled by the outpouring of love and support, and truly grateful. Thank you, all of you. I see your love, I realize its power, and I understand how very much I need all of it and all of you, who have given so freely.

Even so, even with all that, it's hard to describe how empty and centerless my life feels without Peter. It's a long, straight hallway with dim lights and no clear end, no turns, no doors. No windows. It is hard to feel that things will look shiny and bright again ever. In my head, I know they will - experience has taught me that they will - but my heart just doesn't know it yet.

I have been painting. I have been eating, and sleeping fairly well. I've been tending to my unruly pack of dogs, and find that I am grateful for their endless needs and their exuberant joy, and how they greet me with exhilarated welcome every time I walk through a door.

Hold your loved ones close, that is a thing I know now in a way I never knew before, and find a way to a peaceful heart today, in this moment. If there is a thing you do, a way you are, that you don't like in your relationship, change it. Imagine - if he died today, would you regret being a nag? If he died today, would you wish you'd spent less time asking him to pick up his stuff and more time telling him how much you love him? If he died today, would he know how central he was to everything that you do?

These questions and their inevitable answers of failure have cut deep into my heart since Peter died. In the daily ups and downs of marriage, we take small frictions and minor squabbles for granted. I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd been more accepting, kinder, more willing to overlook, give in, acquiesce. I wish I'd written him more poetry and fewer reminder notes. I wish I'd sung him the song of my heart more fully and more clearly. I'd give anything to take back those careless quibbles and exchange them for words of love and support.

We had a good marriage - even, maybe, a great one. We loved each other, treasured each other, told each other so, and sought to make each other happy every day. But if I'd known it would end so soon, so abruptly, I'd have changed so much about myself. I'd have been such a better person, such a better wife. I'm sharing this now not to berate myself, but to offer a moment's pause that might help you avoid an eternity of longing.

Two Long Weeks

Peter

These days stretch out like fog along a gravel road, gray at the top, sharp beneath my feet.

For more than 30 years, it was the two of us together, with a changing retinue of dogs and cats. Always, there was my dear Erika, but usually at a distance.

It was Peter and me, in Westerly, in Portsmouth, in Idaho, in Maine, in Paris and Madrid and the Basque Pyrenees. It was him and me in Connecticut and Maryland and New York state and here on the Eastern Shore.

It was the two of us camping on the Big Hole River, fishing Kelly Creek and Silver Creek, skiing together at Bogus Basin, walking the woods in Bolster's Mills, swimming in the Neversink River, driving through western Canada, climbing to the top of a mountain in Lake Louise with our little dog, Gus. When we got to the top and were told Gus couldn't sit on the patio of the mountaintop restaurant with us, we turned around and hiked back down.

It was the two of us, together, complete. It was enough. We had friends, and we have family we love, but he made my world.

And now he is gone.

I can't believe it. Still can't believe it, two weeks after his death. I am sure he is about to walk in, yell "Hey, baby!" and hug and kiss me. Again and again, I am sure. Again and again, I relive the truth.

He is not coming back. There is no more "us." No more turning to him and asking, "Do you remember when we...?" No more, "Look at what I saw today!" knowing it would make him smile.

I made the painting of him a few days ago. When I was in New Mexico in the spring, I bought a set of pigments from a guy who mines the minerals and then crushes them into pigment. I'd been saving them for something special.

We are holding a memorial celebration for Peter on Saturday, Nov. 23, in Westerly, RI. I will paste the notice in below. You are welcome to attend. If you can't, maybe you can put a Hawaiian shirt on on that day, even over another shirt. If you want to read about his life, you may click here to get to his obituary, on jacobson-arts.com

***

PLEASE JOIN US at the Calabrese Club on Saturday, Nov. 23, to celebrate the rich, art-filled and too-short life of Peter Richard Jacobson, who died Oct. 10. The club is located at 28 Pleasant St., Westerly, RI.

The celebration will take place from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Please come prepared to share stories and memories about Peter. And if you have or can get a Hawaiian shirt, please wear one. They were his favorite. 

The celebration will be alcohol-free. If you would like to bring a dish to share, please contact Erika Jacobson Chiaradio, either by tagging or messaging her on Facebook, or calling her at 401-595-6850.

To read his obituary, please visit jacobson-arts.com. To see his artwork, please visit peterjacobsonart.com

Peter

Peter

My sweet husband died on Thursday, Oct. 10, after a massive heart attack here at home Wednesday night.

He had come home Sunday from more than three weeks in Rhode Island, where he went to a Chariho High School reunion and spent great, loving, wonderful time with our daughter, Erika, her husband Paul and their youngest, Ashton.

If you knew Peter, you know what a triumph this trip was. A homebody bordering on hermit, he had terrible anxiety around travel. Going to the store, or even Virginia Beach or Salisbury -  90 minutes away, each - that was OK. But going away - away-away - that was hard for him. Very hard.

Armed with a brand-new iPhone, which he had reluctantly agreed to, after years of dismissing the idea, and had then totally fallen in love with - he set out in September for the land of his youth.

I was stunned to hear that he was interested in his high school reunion, but I didn't tease him or question it. That he was going, and possibly for an extended time, this was an achievements I celebrated - and he did, too.

He had a great time at the reunion, and a grand time with Erika, Paul and Ashton. He did a lot of cooking for them, and they sat on the front porch every evening and talked and laughed into the night. He called me from the porch and told me how much fun he was having, and again and again how proud he was of our daughter, who is in a great marriage, has earned her RN degree, has a job she loves and a fine house.

Peter reconnected with the Westerly area, too, in a way I thought he never would. He grew up there, and we met there and had our first home there, but he had been singularly dismayed with the building and development and crowding and commercialization that had occurred there over the years. He'd sworn that he'd never go back, at least not to live, and not to visit, if he could help it.

But he was so enchanted this trip that while he was there, we talked about finding a way to live there for part of the year, or even, maybe, move there. He saw old friends, visited places he had loved, and hunted for arrowheads for hours and hours many days.

And then he came home, and he was happy to be here, in our quiet little town. He told me how much he loves it here, and we talked about all the differences between Westerly and Wachapreague, and again talked about the possibility of finding a way to spend part of the year up there, in that place, yes, but more, with Erika and her family.

He had been having terrible back pain, starting between his shoulder blades and radiating out. It had been going on for four or five days by the time he got home. It seemed to ease up, but then kicked in again on Tuesday.

We went to the Rural Health clinic on Wednesday. His blood pressure was elevated but not dramatically, or at least, that's what they said. They gave him medicine for his chest cold and coughing, and for pain, and sent us home.

Around midnight, I woke up to a crash coming from the living room. He was on the couch, pale and clammy, holding his chest and arching his back. He told me to call 911 and I did, and stayed with him for what felt like hours until the ambulance arrived. They put him on oxygen and before they wheeled him out, I kissed him and told him I loved him and that it would be OK.

It wasn't. He had a cardiac arrest in the ambulance, and honestly, I believe that's when he died. Between here and our hospital. They were doing chest compressions when the ambulance doors opened. They put him on a ventilator, and got him back. Our hospital has one cardiologist, and no cardiac facilities. He came in, and said he thought Peter was stable enough to get to the hospital in Salisbury, which does have cardiac capabilities.

It was too windy for a helicopter, so we waited for the ambulance with the ventilator. Ninety minutes to Salisbury. Thirty in the ER. Then up to ICU, where he arrested again. They revived him - Erika and Paul were on their way.

I knew there was no hope. When they arrived, we spent a few hours with him, then disconnected the life support systems and let him go.

He died long, long, long before he should have. He had plans, and projects and ideas. He was vigorous, interested in life, discovering new things, new likes and hobbies. I know he wasn't ready.

And I am not ready. I am broken, lost, lonely and sadder than I could ever have thought possible. A friend of mine reminded me that I once told him that Peter completed me - and he did. He was my love, my soulmate, my very best friend. Everything I did, I have realized, I did to make him happy - because making him happy was what made me happy.

When I made a painting, I showed it to him first - hoping for delight and enthusiasm, or for a critique that would help me improve it. I made very few paintings that he didn't see before anyone. He was my audience, my target, the person for whom I painted.

The meals I cooked, I cooked because I knew they would please him. I found things and bought things and took pictures of things - all to amuse him or engage him or interest his sharp and active mind and imagination.

I don't know how to live without him, I just don't.

Today, it's finally gray and cold and horrible and rainy. Today the world matches my soul. These days since he died have been beautiful and warm and sunny, the kind of day in which we'd take a break from whatever we were doing, and sit in our quiet back yard and talk and watch the dogs, and he'd say, "Aahhh. This is why we live here."

A few months ago, as I was driving back from some show or painting trip, I realized that I absolutely loved my life. That it could not be better, could not be more perfect. I doubt I'll ever be able to say that again. I wake up each morning, and my first thought is, "Another day without Peter." And I weep.

Shapleigh, Maine

I'VE HAD MYSELF a busy time lately, and it's been fun! The Mystic Outdoor Art Festival was a success - and if you were a part of making it a success, thank you.                                                                                                                                Before and after, I spent time with friends and family, staying at our daughter's house in Rhode Island (with a pool!) and during a brief trip to Maine. I was able to drive up to Maine on one day, and back the next.                                                                                                                                              Crazy, a little, but it let me spend time with my aunt and uncle, two sets of cousins and their families (one, whom I rarely see, lives in St. Paul), my brother and his wife and daughter, and my friend Heather, (below) who came with me on one of my very first painting trips.                                                                                                                                          It was a whirlwind - and it was fun! We lived in Maine on and off for 10 years, and while it was a tough, and often depressing place to live, there was much I loved about it, including the landscape. I rejoiced that I had time to squeeze out a couple paintings, including this one, at left,  of a lake in Shapleigh, Maine.                                                       

***

Dog of the Day

 It's Annie, the bulldog who lives with my brother Rand Cooper, his wife Molly and their teenager, Larkin. And of course, Archie, who, I believe, thinks Annie is a little nuts. She clearly enjoyed her tutu T-shirt. And why not? It made her so special!

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A Final Thought

"Art should be an oasis: a place or refuge from the hardness of life." 

- Fernando Botero

Slice of Light (After the Wedding)

     

Slice of Light

Oil on blackened canvas, 36x48

New version, above; origina version, below

I have brought this painting to a number of shows, and had it in a few galleries, and it has not sold. I think it's one of my best paintings ever - and it has a cool story. I go to breakfast most Thursdays with a group of  women who have come to the Eastern Shore from Away. We go to the Sage Diner, an Eastern Shore institution, have breakfast, talk, laugh, share. 

For years, we were helped by the same waitress, a gorgeous, tall (6-foot-plus, and always with her hair up, making her even taller) woman who's from the Shore. 

One day, she announced that she was going to marry her high-school sweetheart. They'd both been through marriages that hadn't worked, and had run into each other again and fallen in love. And all of us, the Ladies, were invited. 

After the wedding, which was in the afternoon, I walked out of the church and saw this scene across the street. A beautiful farm field with the last slanting light of afternoon cutting across it. 

I painted it initially (below) quite dark and light, and recently lightened and brightened it. What do you think? 

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Westport

I'LL BE IN Westport, CT, this weekend, at the Westport Fine Arts Festival. YES, it's going to be hot, so bring fluids, wear a hat, expect to sweat - but please come to the show if you can. I'm in Booth 45, on Main Street, near the intersection with Elm. I'll put a Facebook Live video up on Saturday, if I can! 

Meantime, above, a photo of my booth from the recent Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts in State College, PA. 

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Dog of the Day

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A Final Thought

"Art should be an oasis: a place or refuge from the hardness of life." 

- Fernando Botero