Chickadee on Cherry Branch

Chickadee on Cherry Branch / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 /  $68 including shipping

sold! 

THE LITTLE BIRDS - the chickadees and wrens, the sparrows and titmice, the little brown and gray guys - the little birds seem cheery, going about their business without bustle or fuss.

I know this is me anthropomorphizing, but I do watch them, I do pay attention, and really, the little birds have their quiet ways. Some flit up to the feeders and eat there, but most eat on the ground, feasting on seeds the bigger birds toss aside.

The little ones generally don't squawk or fight like the jays, though I've seen them steal plenty of seeds from each other. They don't insist like the cardinals, though I've seen them push and shove and barge their way in. They don't collect devouring clouds like the starlings and crows, though I've seen gangs of them fluttering at the base of a feeder.

They flit and perch, shake their mundane feathers, tip their often drab heads and stay mostly in the background, as important as all the others, but staying quiet about it.

***

For Today

"Little flocks of Black-capped Chickadees enliven the winter woods with their active behavior and their cheery-sounding chick-a-dee callnotes as they fly from tree to tree, often accompanied by an assortment of nuthatches, creepers, kinglets, and other birds. This is a very popular bird across the northern United States and southern Canada, always welcomed at bird feeders, where it may take sunflower seeds one at time and fly away to stuff them into bark crevices. "

- From the Audubon Guide to North American Birds

Cardinal on a Snowy Branch

Cardinal on Snowy Branch / Oil on black canvas, unframed, $68

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Sometimes, I miss the winter days, the way the sharp cold light drains the color from the sky - or adds it, either way, shifting it, reminding me of growing up, winters in Connecticut, the sky so close, a part of the day in ways it wouldn't be again for years, until I started painting. Until I started looking.

The cardinals are as jewel-like in Virginia's gray mornings, though there is something to be said for the way they strut their color in a New England winter morning, and shake the new snow from a thin branch, announcing their flashy beauty.

***

For Today

Wild Geese
Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Roadrunner

Roadrunner / Oil on black canvas, unframed, $68 including shipping

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WHEN I WAS a kid, and through until today, the roadrunner cartoons were always among my favorites. On one trip out west, I saw an Acme brick company. Wish I could remember where that was.

At any rate, I laughed out loud when I saw a real roadrunner for the first time. They really DO run.

***

For Today

Roadrunner

By Angelina Sarsficio

Roadrunner, roadrunner

Where are you running to?

Fast you are, but I've seen you.

What did you do? That's why you're looking around.

Are you looking for me?

. . . I'm standing over here.

What Are YOU Looking At?

What Are YOU Looking At? / Nuthatch / Oil on black canvas, 6x12, $135 including shipping

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THERE IS SOMETHING to be said for the little birds, brown and gray. Not flashy. Not vivid. Not iridescent. Nothing that invites you to look twice.

There is something to be said for the small, quiet way they go about their business, blending in, flitting, chirping. Thriving. At the feeder, there will be dozens of the little birds to one of the brighter one. Numbers of them feeding on the ground while the bright blue jays and queen-red cardinals push the food aside, tossing down clouds of seeds, to find the one bit that pleases them. And then the little birds on the ground pick up the leavings, happy to have them. 

I love the little birds the way I love gray skies, color-drained winter fields, the smart and shy and quiet people in my life. 

As I pack Peter's clothes to be donated, or given to my family and my friends, what I find is mostly colors that aren't bright, that don't draw attention. Browns and grays, the colors of the small birds that we both watched and fed and loved. 

***

Winter Field / Oil on black canvas, 16x16 (?) / Please contact me for price, size, availability

I WILL BE IN ARIZONA during the Tubac show, Feb. 5-9, and will be exhibiting, but not in my regular spot. Instead, I will be on the patio of my gallery there, Sweet Poppy,  19 Tubac Road, near Shelby's restaurant. 

This is a gamble for me, not exhibiting at the show, in the space where I have always shown and sold my work. But it is a simpler set-up and offers me some freedom and flexibility. This is the year for me to try different things, and so I am giving it a go. 

If you are in Tubac during the show, please come to Sweet Poppy and see my new paintings. 

***

For Today

Sonnet 97

William Shakespeare

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness every where!
And yet this time removed was summer’s time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
   Or, if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer
   That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

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/

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! 

***

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. 

***

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.

***

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.

***

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.