Abstract and Landscape
An interrupted meditation by the Battenkill I’m having a lot of conversations with spring in my work these days. Some days spring is popping; others it’s buried under a fresh dumping of snow. Likewise, some days I paint the conversation with reckless abandon and no image in mind, but as my head turns, outdoors again,… Continue reading Back to the Land
Talking to Spring It’s been in the 40s and 50s the last couple of days, and even though there are some sizable snowbanks left, it feels like Mother Nature is ready to keep her annual promise.The light is changing. it lasts longer every day. It seems as if there are even more critters crawling around… Continue reading Talking to Spring
Today we got the veggies into the garden, And Mother Nature got into the act, coaxing bees into fruit blossoms and sending breezes through the sunlight trees. I admit, when I had to take a break between loads of compost or a stretch between planting rows, I let the siren call of social media pull… Continue reading In the Moment
I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m getting my painting kit together for an afternoon of escapism, I feel a little bit like James Bond’s messed up kid sister (yeah I like to pretend I’m that young). Flipping open my beat up watercolor tin that looks like somebody’s five-year-old got into it and checking… Continue reading Maximum Distraction
I love that the animals don’t need a weather report to know how to handle the day. They went out for their morning constitutional‘s, scanned or sniffed the sky, and were back at the window in less than five minutes, waiting to come in. They’ve been curled up next to and on the couch in… Continue reading How to Handle a Day
"The day before spring break is always a perfect day for a snow storm," or at least that's what I imagine Murphy was thinking to himself as he thought of all the conditions that might prove his law to be true. It it actually is a perfect day to dump a bunch of precipitation on… Continue reading April Fools
For a brief moment on our daily walk around the house the other day, sun and rain and warmth coexisted, and it felt like spring might be here.
Most of our house is buried to save on energy bills. When the wind tears through in the spring and fall, however, I find myself wishing we’d buried the entire thing until I look at the sleeping Sisters from a Different Litter. The wind and rain have completely blurred the view from our cave… Continue reading What Us Worry?
Winter in Vermont doesn’t really end in March. That happens sometime in mid-May after a last coating of snow, but in April, just when cabin fever seems like it’s getting critical, we do get signs of hope. Most years, our first sign of hope has been the email from the Little League coach announcing the… Continue reading April In Spite of Everything
Working weekends torpedoes your social life, and, when you work at home with most of your work friends in different cities or states your social opportunities are limited to begin with. I compound those factors with a relatively introverted personality — I had almost perfected the shut-in lifestyle before I decided to go back to… Continue reading Watching a Saturday Go By
I’m on wheelbarrow load number 10 or 12 full of dirt and fieldstone, Vermont’s unofficial state crop. I’m trying to level out an area where we’re about to put a deck or, rather, where the nice young man who lives at the bottom of the hill is going to build a deck for us. It’s been… Continue reading Freebasing Spring
Rachel Barlow Art 