Painting the bifold doors is giving me a chance to get a new take on an old scene. The original of this scene was an 8×10 that’s found another home, and it’s turning into even more fun now that my little dirt road is looking like big sky country ( about 4 feet by 3 ft so far).
For the past few months I’ve been playing with oil, and because of work and family, most of the work has been done in my ‘studio’ or on the roadside very close to home. None of the spots in my show are famous (except for the Battenkill River), but they pull me back again and again, and the ritual of visiting these places in my very small world has been at once soothing and inspiring.
I’m including a list of the pieces hanging at the Oldcastle Theatre in Bennington, VT below, and you can see a quick video tour on my Facebook page.
There will be no artist reception because the theatre schedule is quite booked this month. They are open between 10AM and 5PM during the week and for their scheduled evening events. They are holding their annual Gala on the 17th of November at 6:00PM, and , if you are in Bennington, it’s a wonderful chance to look at oil paintings and the many other items they’ll have up for bid to support the theatre and the work it does. December 7-8 they are performing a play called the “Curious Savage”, and in between those dates they will be hosting a number of plays and gatherings.
Prints and originals (when still available), can be purchased on Etsy here.
“Under the Apple Tree” 11” x 14” Oil $200
“Return of Cold Rivers” 11” x 14” Oil$200
“Piece of Perfect” 4” x 6” Oil$65
Fall, 9×12, $150 Winter, 9×12, $150 Spring” 9” x 12” Oil$150
“Respite” 8” x 10” Oil $125
So my show is hung – more on that later- and between classes and work, I haven’t painted more than a few strokes in a few days. I’m heading into a week of cleaning and Thanksgiving preparations, and I’ll do some writing , but I’m also looking for new ways to play.
Anticipating a bigger crowd this year, I did a little bit of rearranging of the living room so that we could pull out our antique dining room table that has been mothballed while the boys were still in their soccer-in-the-house-phases. I was pretty pleased with the results, but as you can see from the picture above , our open floor plan, which is usually perfect for a very casual lifestyle, makes it hard to really dress up the layout for dinner.
If only I had some way to divide the spaces, I have been thinking. The only obvious way was to build or move a wall, but that might result in the Big Guy choosing to spend Thanksgiving somewhere else. I knew I needed a temporary wall, and Pinterest came to the rescue with a few ideas for folding screens and carefully situation plans. There were some fairly simple screens, and there were others that were decorated with Georgian style paintings. Can you guess which ones I decided I could make myself?
Yep, you can,
And as luck would have it we have a pair of unused doors from when we first built the house. The Big Guy listened to my plan with the tolerant (even encouraging) smile that all men who have been married successfully for two decades have learned, and I dragged my new “canvas” back to my studio.
Because the only answer to what could possibly be better than a blank canvas is a lot bigger one.
Believe in the Sun
Thing2’s chorus teacher, apparently mindful of the potential impact of current events on his students, shared with them a song that had been discovered in the barracks at one of the concentration camps after World War II. I’m printing it up for my bulletin board:
“I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love,
even when there’s no one there.
And I believe in God,
even when he is silent.
I believe through any trial,
there is always a way
But sometimes in this suffering
and hopeless despair
My heart cries for shelter,
to know someone’s there
But a voice rises within me, saying hold on
my child, I’ll give you strength,
I’ll give you hope. Just stay a little while.
I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love
even when there’s no one there
But I believe in God
even when he is silent
I believe through any trial
there is always a way.
May there someday be sunshine
May there someday be happiness
May there someday be love
May there someday be peace….”
– Uknown
It seems appropriate that this palette would start to give out tonight before I get ready to hang my show in Bennington. It’s worked hard, helping produce over thirty pieces – some of which have gone to new homes.
Tonight starts a new one, and i’m feeling ready for a change of subject or style. There’ll be at least one more visit back to my favorite spot, but I look at winter as a time for seeds and skills to be nurtured under blankets of snow and soil. It’s time to start growing the next season.
Equinox Autumn, 4”x6”, Oil on Panel
There a few scenes I come back to over and over again. This spot with the white birches near the Equinox mountain is different every day, and yet it has the same effect. The mountain and clouds, the white trucks and the blowing leaves are better than oxycodone. They are hallucinogens, they are the moments I go back to when sorting out real life becomes exhausting.
Morning Break, 11”x14”, Oil
We got home from the Hospital on Tuesday evening. I went to the pharmacy and hit a deer on the way down. No humans were injured, but the dinged up car looked like a belated omen initially. But I had misread the omen.
Thing2 was with me and, it initially thinking that the deer had been killed, burst into tears. I pulled over and started to cry too. Then, Not wanting to leave the scene with a deer possibly lying in the middle of a busy dark road, I dialed the state troopers And made a U-turn to see if I could see an injured animal and or next to the road. The trooper came and took my report, helping me find pieces of my car, and he and we looked for signs of the animal.
Thing2 was the first to point out the eyes staring at us from the field that run along next to the road. My first thought was that the animals hurt, but the eyes moved as if the deer had jumped, and we realized that it was in better shape than my car.
We got to the pharmacy, got groceries and a few things to help Thing1 get settled at home sans his colon. We were both relieved that nothing had been killed, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of something hanging over me.
Thing1 has been home for a few days now. He’s adjusting, And I am catching up on sleep deficit. I’m hardly written word since we’ve been home, but happen painting and every free minute. I’m relieved that all has gone well (the next surgery should be much easier), but the angst that’s been with me for the last two and a half years still hangs. Paint seems to be the only thing to make it go away.
Then today as I got ready to run some errands, Thing2 emerged from the downstairs bedroom where he’ll stay until he’s fully recovered. he was up early today than yesterday, and earlier yesterday and the day before. Today was able to make his own breakfast and think about what he wanted for lunch. He was, and a small way beginning to reclaim some of his independence.
It wasn’t until I was back from my errands, meditating on a painting of our road that I realized that the funny feeling I can’t put my finger on is relief. there still a bit of fear affecting my aim, fear but things could backtrack. for now, though, it’s enough to be able to meditate on canvas and, even if I can’t put my finger on it, meditate as the anxiety begins to melt away.
Return of Cold River, 11×14, Oil, $175
Prints and originals (when still available), can be purchased on Etsy here.
Work in Progress
I’m watching how Superheroes are made. Mine is getting a care lesson from the ostomy nurse, gearing up for the next weeks of recovery, not flinching as she shows him how to care for his small intestine that is now protruding through his stomach.
There have been nights of pain so severe he nearly broke my hand as I held his but not one utterance of “why me?”. There has been only plans for the next day and acknowledgments that he – and we – are so lucky, that things could be so much worse. There’s been gratitude for the nurses and for Mom staying close and even concern that I am not resting enough.
So now I know how superheroes happen. They aren’t born, they’re made as they weather storms without letting the deluge force their gazes down or inward but instead keep focusing on hope on the horizon.
Saturation Point, 4”x6”, Oil on Board, $45
A little over a year and a half ago, Thing1 climbed a mountain, walking up the drive from our house about 2 in the afternoon and climbed five miles up the back of Mount Equinox that divides Sandgate from Manchester, VT. He circumnavigated land owned by Carthusian monks and negotiated a right of way with a bear that literally crossed his path on the way back. He watched as storms went by and took shelter for a few minutes as needed.
But he kept climbing.
Thing1 had been sick for almost a year. He told me later he had kept climbing because he needed that win. I know he kept climbing because, regardless of his fears or any obstacles that come his way, he is willing to keep going. He will keep moving forward, even if he has to go slowly.
He’s going slowly today. He’s stood up for a few minutes and then needed a two-hour nap to recover. The first time, I steadied him. The second time, he insisted I only spot him.
He’ll be standing again today. He’ll expend a mountain’s climb of energy to walk from his bed to the nurse’s station, but, even as I watch him wince as he works to inflate his lungs fully, I know he’ll be at the top. He’ll be walking down that mountain with a smile on his face, even if the sun has long set and he knows his mom is still worrying sick about him.
Because worrying is what moms may do, but climbing mountains is what kids are born to do.
If you are interested in purchasing this painting, please contact me directly.
Museum-quality prints or art on household items available here.
It feels like being in an airport. It’s not just the carpeted hallway. It’s the waves of people walking to and fro, the food court and cafeteria, and the gift shop that keeps people busy as they wait.
We, with Thing1,are on journey that’s too far and complicated to drive ourselves. The Big Guy had to work first thing this morning, so the boys and I made the two Hour drive ahead of him, leaving our still dark hill and riding over the mountains into the sun.
The ride was quiet. Thing1 was pensive. Thing2 was asleep.
We know the hospital routine now. We check in. They usher us back to what will be a recovery room for some people and a preop for us. He changes into his gown. They set the IVs. A surgeon and anesthesiologist and host of nurses come in asking overlapping and different questions about his current state. Thing2 entertains all of us with sixth grade jokes, even getting his older brother to pose for a snapshot in his surgical cap.
There’s a last joke, then a kiss and a longer hug. Then they take him to the operating room. I have been swallowing tears all day and not knowing exactly why. The surgery is routine for the doctor. It is so much less dangerous than it was 20 years ago.
Thing1 has been in the operating room for almost 3 hours now. He has another two or three hours to go. I waffle between telling myself everything’s going to be fine and simply hoping for it.
He will wake up without his colon. He will wake up cured but on another shore with new challenges. There will be learning to care a for an ostomy while he waits for the next procedure. There will be learning to live with pain, a lesson he’s been learning for most of the last two years.
I know he will be OK, but as I write this, I am swallowing hard, wondering how this leg of the journey will end.
Picking My Battles 