Hummer at Red Flower

Hummer at Red Flower / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping

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TODAY AND YESTERDAY, in the amazing, heavy, mind-blurring heat, I've decided to take it easy. I've stayed inside, in the air-conditioning, napping and reading and watching "Silent Witness," a British crime drama that goes on for season after season after season. 

It's never hot in British shows, have you noticed? It rains, sure, and sometimes there's snow, or weather identifiable as "winter," but I've never seen a character wearing shorts (except for tennis) or sweating, or even looking like she is out on a hot summer day. Or am I just thinking narrowly? 

In the heat here, the ants seem to have found magically instant paths to invade the hummingbird feeders, and of course, the hummers won't go near them with the ants - would you? So I've taken the feeders down for the time being. I miss them! Miss the buzz and blur of the birds, their nasty battles for dominance and ownership, their beautiful colors flashing in the sun. In a day or so, I will try again. There are plenty of flowers available here on the shore, so I think the hummers will be OK until my feeders go back up. 

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For Today

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." 

- Neale Donald Walsch

Red-Winged Crow

Red-Winged Crow / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

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WELL, I HAD A LAUGH that started yesterday and continued well into today. Thought I would share it, since I do share all my woes and tribulations, and it's good that you all know that my life is not an endless series of gray and depressing days.

Since The Great Confinement began, I've been giving a series of free painting workshops on Saturdays, (at 1 p.m. Eastern, on my Carrie Jacobson, Artist Facebook page). 

Usually, 20-25 people tune in. Many paint, some just watch, and some watch during the live workshop and paint afterwards, watching the videos (they are archived on my Carrie Jacobson Workshop Videos Facebook page). 

Regular participants include the Wachapreague postmaster, Alena, and her mother, Darlene. They both make art, Alena generally with pastels, and Darlene, with a variety of media. Alena is a good and enthusiastic painter; Darlene is very talented, very experienced, and back to painting after a long absence. You can see her work on her Facebook page, Paper Moon Studio. 

They joined in this past Saturday, as we painted a wading egret. When I was about 10 minutes into the painting, Darlene posted that she wanted to buy it. That totally cracked me up - not only was I not finished with the painting - but I was barely started! 

I laughed and said, sure, and that maybe I should just end the painting and the workshop right there, and call it a day. It really made me laugh. I've had people buy paintings before they were finished, but never when they were just barely started. Honestly, I thought she was kidding. 

But this afternoon, I got a text from Alena, wanting to know when she and Darlene could come and get the painting! Hahahaha!! She actually DID want it, and she KNEW it, right then and there, before it was even one-third done. Still has me laughing and shaking my head. 

What a lovely world this can be. 

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For Today

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

-Rabindranath Tagore

Barred Owl

Barred Owl / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping

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THESE LONG SUMMER DAYS seem endless. I try hard not to ask the big questions - where I will go, what I will do, how I will solve the riddle of my life - because when I start thinking like that, there is just too much time. Too many minutes. Too much daylight. The brutality of an 8:30 sunset becomes unimaginable, and all I want is darkness, and for it to be OK to go to bed, shut down the day, close off the questions, make my mind be quiet. 

So instead, I focus on the things that I can do. The answers I can come up with. I can vacuum the house. I can put the dishes away. I can make a 5x7 painting of a bird. I can't make the sun set, or bring Peter back, or answer even one of the big questions. But I can brush a dog, make another pot of coffee, figure out what bird to paint next. 

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For Today

"I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful." 

- Pete Hamill

Wading Egret

Wading Egret / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping

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WALK WITH ME, and remember love, and joy, and nothing-afternoons of long, slanting sun, he day's heat gathered in the broad spaces and narrow corners of the yard. The warm evening does nothing to chase it away, but in the shadows, and along the marsh, where I walk, the breeze lifts a cool finger, touches my heart, makes me remember, makes me wish, makes me want to be whole again. 

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For Today

"It's impossible to explain creativity. It's like asking a bird, 'How do you fly?' You just do." 

- Eric Jerome Dickey

Red-Tailed Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk / oil on black canvas / 4x4 / $38 including shipping

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A FRIEND'S HUSBAND DIED Monday, after a long and wearing illness. He'd been in a nursing home since January, and since April, with one exception, my friend had not been able to see him, because of the covid. 

The exception was last week, when he was very sick, and had been taken to a hospital, and she was allowed in, and could touch him and kiss him and hold his hand. 

It feels like there has been a lot of death lately, or maybe I am just noticing it more. 

The one thing I have learned from all of it is that it's up to me to live, as strongly and as bravely and as appreciatively as I can, every day, every hour, every minute. I owe it to Peter, to my mother, and I owe it to my family and my friends, and most of all, I owe it to myself. 

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For Today

"In many traditions, hawks are sacred: Apollo's messengers for the Greeks, sun symbols for the ancient Egyptians and, in the case of the Lakota Sioux, 

embodiments of clear vision, speed and single-minded dedication." 

- John Burnside

Kingfisher

Kingfisher / Oil on black canvas / 4x12 / $88 including shipping

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AT LONG LAST, RAIN is falling here in Wachapreague. It is just a passing shower, but even so, it's something. Water. Moisture. Something to soften the crisp, brown grass in my yard. Hold down the dust. Wet the shriveling leaves of my hollyhocks. Give the farmers even a thought of something other than desperate disaster.

And so, I rejoice. Even if it is only a little rain, it is respite. It is a break. It is a relief. It's something different! And the birds are loving it. They are already bathing in a little puddle in the road. 

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For Today

"Great art picks up where nature ends."

- Marc Chagall

Mr. Chicken

Mr. Chicken / oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68 includes shipping

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CHICKENS ARE PART OF THE FAMILY in quite a few homes around here. By now, I'm familiar with the ones I drive by regularly, and I make sure I slow down, not only to keep from hitting the chickens, but mostly, so I can see them. 

I like the way they walk, and the indignation I imagine I see on their little faces as I drive near their territory. I like their front-heavy bodies, and their often brilliant feathers. Peter collected all sorts of feathers for his fly-tying, and introduced me to many types of brightly colored chickens. I've also learned that people sometimes collect chickens just for the color of the shells of the eggs the birds lay. 

My friend Diana Davis (https://www.facebook.com/dianadaviswatercolor/) is a wizard at painting chickens, and I've learned a lot from looking at her paintings. Hope you take a look! 

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For Today

"Those who do not want to imitate anything produce nothing." 

- Salvador Dali