A few photos of things I'm seeing...

It seems I'm on a "break" from painting...not a bad thing, tho' it has made me feel a little sad at times, but I've determined this period to be a well deserved rest. But this break does not keep me from seeing what there is to see and so I've been taking more pictures with my camera...

Elizabeth's and her little soft donkey nose is a joy...

The best of good boys, Max! Growing old.

a found sketchbook of my father's, these are drawings he made of his father snoozing...

the last rose from my garden

 I will be working on the sketchbook for the 2014 Sketchbook Project soon, so I will post the work in progress once I get started...

:D

I'm of course hunkered down working on the final editing of my third novel, it's just been a very slow going process, it's a big book so it is taking time...and I want it to be right...

That's the news and pictures...

The closing...

June 30, 2013

I not only finished a new painting last week Sunday (6/30/2013), but I had to say goodbye to the beautiful Szozda Gallery...Caroline was forced to close down because she wasn't making enough sales to meet the bills, which is sadly the fate of too many small businesses these days...however, it is a well known fact (locally) that Syracuse is a tough place for selling art, there's a thriving community of the faithful who cheered her on, so she followed her bliss to try her luck...

Last Call

http://www.syracusenewtimes.com/newyork/article-6938-last-call.html

(Many of the photos I snagged off Facebook...credit to Nathan Wellner and Steve Nyland for many of these candid shots of the day... )

Caroline!

Me n' my Fred

 

My Fred's sculptures (at the opening earlier in June)

My Fred's sculptures and glass by Carmel Nicoletti sharing a pedestal the day of the closing

skateboard decks...the yellow one I painted and the dark one next to it was painted by my Fred...

There's a good deal of talent in Central New York and this was the one professional venue that featured the local artists...there are other places in town, but this one is special...

The Intern and the Mom...

Our son, Nathan has been interning with Caroline for over a year, and Caroline's mom drove many miles to come help on reception nights...

One last look at how it was...

Bittersweet...need I say more?

A literary painting...

A Poem, 6/30/2013, acrylic wash, rice paper and pencil on canvas, 30 x 12 inches

I wrote a poem on March 20th of this year (posted on Upstate Girl) and then I finished the painting to go with it on June 30th...I've been wanting to incorporate my literary efforts into my paintings for some time so this is the first try...I'm quite happy with the way it turned out...I like the fragmentary nature of it, the layers of words and paint making the poem difficult to read, losing fragments of it...like something ancient found, it makes me think of that book If Not, Winter, Fragments of Sappho translated by Ann Carson...

...bits and pieces playing peekaboo in the paint...and that color is perfect, when I put the sepia along the edges it popped even more than before, gorgeous...

detail top center

detail top left

detail top right

detail middle left

detail bottom middle

...at some point I'm going to do the same with one of my novels (which should be totally fun to cut up a couple of my uncorrected proofs and make a pretty mess of it!)

This is the buried poem...

I am vexed. It is all commonplace at first glance—as it should be—
The sky is blue—or gray depending on the weather—there is snow
now—grass will come later—the bare bones of trees have
buds waiting to burst, but when I take a careful look
around—all is 'as it should be' on the surface—but
I know better than that.
There are other things beyond me—outside of my realm—
out of my sphere of influence—out of control.
I could wake up screaming some times,
but I don’t. Screaming solves nothing. What will be—
will be. Indeed. Where do I dare to look?
No blood.
There or there. No—wait—
wait for it—maybe? Ah, no, I’m wrong.
It’s a photograph of trauma—the latest life drama
right there on the front page—right there on the television
and there on the latest gadget screen. Where to look first?
Don’t blink.
Don’t look away. Dang, it’s another train wreck of yet
another individual
blowing their wad—their existence—
constituted misery—making a mess for others to clean up.
So much loss happened long before the aftermath.
Someone dropped the ball between here and there.
Shit, they didn’t look both ways. Don’t you know by now?
Stop – Look - Listen for the two sides of the story.
Don’t you see? Can’t you see?
Amend—make amends—amendments—
Adjust yourself—ourselves—
in keeping with the situation.
Running around putting out fires,
it’s all gone before you know it—
before you knew you had it.
Don’t blink
or you’ll miss it.
Just a moment—a moment of being. Be.
I wonder ‘how come’. What the fuck, right? Seriously.
Some days I feel like I’m running a marathon while standing still.
Beleaguered. Belabored. Be. Been.
The cold Winter wind that lingers on the Spring equinox breath
is disheartening. My feet are chilled, but I’ll get over it—it
being such a small thing. There are worse things than cold feet.
Some are sure it’s just a phase we’re in—adjusting.
The world is appalling to me—these days
I am vexed
by it all. Tired. Dead dog tired
of the latest ‘it’ thing. It is—it was—it will be—
It and the many things ‘it’ is—or possibly
can be.
My head can just about pop off my body from thinking—
listening to it all. Whose side are you on—you chose.
Right or left—wrong or right. My country ‘tis of thee—
What happened to my sweet land of liberty? Of thee I—
Of thee... See? I can’t even sing the words—my vexation runs deep.
So I chose to laugh at the way things are—shake my head
in wonder of it all. Disbelief—how come—how now,
dear old brown cow.
I hope to be safe
here on my acre of the world—my home sweet home—
the one place I can call my own—
there are no guarantees of that either—no matter what I do—
staying out of it while being in the middle of it all.
No wonder I’m so vexed.

LJW 3/20/2013

Buried Treasure...

This is a post from May 4, 2008 I was exploring digital cameras and the color yellow...

I'm slowly coming around to the idea that digital cameras are just as good as the old fashioned cameras that I learned on way back when...even though my new digital camera isn't that fancy, more on the low end...but I intend to have fun with it making pictures of the bits of nature in my yard...

This wild daffodil reminds me of the ones I used to pick for my mother when I was a little girl running around in the back woods getting burdocks caught in the fringe of my poncho...sometimes in my hair...


A bit reminiscent of Georgia O'Keeffe's flowers...


Next to blue, yellow is one of my favorite colors to work with...and this little flower had it all in one delicate package...

Which brings me back to this little watercolor...Stream of Consciousness, Yellow from January of 2006...

And Celestial Spring, March 18, 2007...

And Celestial Spring, II from December 2007...

Yellow...

 And since that post, I continue to play with my favorite color yellow...

Amber Dawn, 5/2011, acrylic wash, rice paper on canvas, 16 x 8 inches

The Longest Day, 6/21/2011, acrylic wash, rice paper on canvas, 24 x 24 inches

Eclipse, 7/29/2012, acrylic wash, rice paper on canvas, 30 x 12 inches

Solar, 7/22/2012, acrylic wash, rice paper on canvas, 8 x 8 inches

 

Here Comes the Sun, 2/17/2013, acrylic wash, rice paper on canvas, 20 x 20 inches

Walking on the Sun, April 2010, acrylic and watercolor on BFK Rives, 10 1/4 x 12 inches

This little painting was made specifically for the book cover for my novel, The Fractured Hues of White Light that was published in May of 2010 (the color yellow is significant to the main character Samantha Ryder.)