an arting life
This painting has a quirky history. It began when a commission wasn’t going well. When the commissioned painting was completed, a lot of paint remained on my palette. Most of it was blue. So, I took another in-progress painting off the wall – one that needed a lot more blue – and I worked on…
I re-learned a valuable artistic lesson this week. It’s about energy and the creative process, when I’m not working in flow. This is a difficult time for me. My mother – who is ordinarily very strong and healthy – is in the hospital. I’m continuing to work as much as I can, but some days…
Last night, I was re-reading Finding Your Visual Voice. It’s a book that steadily inspires me. The opening line of the book is, “Artists paint to discover the truth.” That really resonates with my views. There is a truth — an essence — in everything. It’s that essence that inspires the artist; something in what…
I love this little guy, and he’s only partly finished. He’s created from a single sock. The stripes are woven into this cotton sock; they’re not just printed on the fabric. That can make a big difference when designing a sock doll… though I’ll admit that the printed-on designs offer more creative inspiration, at times!…
A couple of weeks ago, I looked at how stress was affecting my work. It’s straight out of The War of Art book. (I should at least browse that book once a week. It is brilliant.) This situation was a Catch-22 in a way: I needed to complete a commission… to feel free of the…
This painting is my second attempt at a landscape including someone’s house. I tried to rush the original painting, since the (well-meaning) client kept asking, “Is it done yet?” and the pressure was driving me up the wall. Heavy hints hadn’t deterred the client from being pushy. Saying, outright, “That’s not helpful,” seemed to get…
This salt marsh in Maine has been a favorite subject for my plein air paintings for years. The location is in Kennebunkport, Maine, across the street from the Bush compound. I started painting at this location as part of my “look the other way” series. For that series, I chose subjects that are a 180-degree…
This is an oil painting from my years (1998 – 2002) in Nashua, New Hampshire. The pond is at Royal Crest, and it is magnificent all year ’round, but especially during the fall foliage season. I painted this over a series of afternoons, en plein air (meaning: outdoors, on location). It’s one of my favorite…
In 1991, I designed and made this quilted wall hanging for a challenge in Salt Lake City, Utah. The challenge fabric was the floral that is in the Baby’s Blocks section, as well as bordering the top and bottom sections (not the actual border, which is black). I thought that the challenge fabric was insipid….
England’s Glastonbury Tor is a mystical place. Its legends include fantastic Arthurian lore and unique Christian history. In this painting, I wanted to capture the exhilarating freshness of Glastonbury in the spring. The scene is the Tor late in May when the flowers are in bloom and the grass is a vivid, new green. This…