Figuratively Speaking - Deep Thought

5"x7" oil

I want to paint the kind of paintings that are so intriguing that you fall into them over and over and don't get complacent or tired of looking at them.  I realize that this isn't always going to happen, but it is nice when it happens once in a while.  Interesting shapes that illicit memories or feelings will do it.  The painting above that he is looking at is like that....a summer scene on a lazy day when you are just kicking back with your good buddy, sitting on the grass.  Maybe you'll both go fishing later on.  It has a nostalgia creating narrative.  Abstracts can do it too without the narrative.  The colors and shapes and lines swirl around in infinitely interesting ways, sometimes looking like one thing, sometimes like another.  I want to live my life like that!  I want to find what makes the day worth being alive and hold on to that for a moment, then come back later to find another reason or feeling that is interesting, fun, curious, sweet, whatever. I want my brain power to grow a little bit and my body to feel its own strength and flexibility.  I want what I eat to make me feel energetic and enthusiastic.  I also want to get a good night's sleep...so I think I will go do that now.  Go Figure!

Baby Steps #15- Metaphor

6"x6" watercolor collage Price $50

Baby shoes are a great metaphor...new beginnings, times gone by, loves found, loves lost, innocence, baby steps, things forgotten, things remembered.  I posted on FB trying to find out the name of my first grade teacher.  Boy did that stir up a lively conversation which included old (literally) friends, out of touch friends, associates, and even people I didn't spend any time with.  Talk about "things remembered!"  What is your first memory?  For a long time I had a memory that involved fear and the world changing into a blur of colors.  I loved that blur, despite the fear. When I was a bit older and understood language a whole lot better, I suddenly was able to make the association of the memory with an experience I was having at the time.  It was winter and I was sledding.  My memory was probably of the first time I went sledding.  The whole world tilted again with that memory and being able to put words of explanation to it.  There have been other times in my life when I felt the sensation of the world tilting or slipping, but none of them are as pleasant or exhilarating.  I had kind of sinking feeling last fall during the election campaign....but that was a whole different thing!  Go Figure!

Figuratively Speaking - Baby Steps #6- Still Life

6"x6" oil on Yupo Price $50

I like to speak to strangers.  In my mind, everyone is a walking book with a story.  If I have the opportunity of opening those pages and hearing their story, I feel honored.  Of course there is always that possibility of opening it and then not being able to close it...but that happens rarely and there are warning signs if you pay attention (like a look of anticipation, slightly bulging eyes, and a general anxiousness looking for a ready victim).  But, I digress.  I have a friend who told me she hates chit chat.  She doesn't have time for it and sees no redeeming quality in it.  I am not like that.  I consider chit chat to being a segue to something more significant...a portal to their world.  So, today I saw a chance to initiate a conversation with someone I didn't know at the gym.  I saw an easy connection by commenting on her shirt, the style and where she got it, because I really like it and have one in another pattern.  Generally I think everyone is my friend until they choose not to be.  She clearly chose not to be.  She never even looked at me as she mumbled something curt.  So, looking at it from her viewpoint, I looked like a busy body trying to find out things that were none of my business.  From my viewpoint, she just blew a chance to make friends with a really interesting and fun person!  Good thing I have Rhino skin!  Go Figure!

Figuratively Speaking - Forever Friends

8"x10" oil

Shelburne Farms is the setting for this scene.  The balustrade is in the gardens overlooking Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountains in NY state.  These women are some of the important women in my life.  I feel very blessed to have had so many wonderful females in my life, starting with my mother who was humble, sweet, nurturing, supportive and offered unconditional love.  She taught me to see the world in a joyful way and tried to teach me to not be swayed by silly things, opinions or people.  She was an artist and one of my dreams came true when she and I attended a Dreama Tolle Perry painting workshop together.  I miss her funny way of saying things, her passion for her family and her wonderful giggle.  She wasn't perfect, like the rest of us, but her faults have faded in my mind because her positive qualities overshadowed them.  I remember as a 12 year old hearing her story about her mother's death when she was 12 and thinking I could not go on without my mom.  It helped me start to see her amazing strength.  She couldn't read and would have been diagnosed with dyslexia if they had known what it was back then, and she was left-handed, another deficit.  She was one of 13 siblings and the school decided she was unteachable and was needed more at home rather than get an education.  She was ashamed about this, but I think it just goes to show what a resourceful woman she was.  She went to art school for a short time and joined the Navy as a bookkeeper because she was a wiz with numbers.  She was a talented mom to five kids and the true definition of great homemaker.  She felt insecure about her lack of education, but taught herself to read and educated herself and she and my dad both valued their children getting an advanced education.  I didn't know, until I was an adult, that my mom had been faking her way life because she couldn't read.  So many things made sense then, like: not ever reading to us when we were little, spending nights up reading when we were teens, and the way she wrote notes in beautiful penmanship but would always leave out words.  Vocabulary was important to my parents. My dad taught me the word "facetious,"  and he was a good example of that.  My mom taught me to use "flibbertigibbet," of which she was not at all!  Go Figure!

Friends Forever

8"x10" oil  SOLD

This was a commission.  It is a gift from one friend to another.  I think it will be a great present to honor their long lasting and loyal friendship.

Together 8"x8" acrylic

I like how sunny this is.  A couple of friends posed for me.  Folks in Vermont are so hearty.  I had on a down coat, hat, mittens and my friends had on light weight shirts and sandals.  It is early winter here, but I painted this in a spring-like setting to give it a feeling of warmth.
SOLD

Forever Friends 8"x8" oil

This is a commission for a graduation presents from one graduate to her friend.  Lovely idea I think.
SOLD

Coming to a close!  I am giving away the following painting at the end of Oct. to one of the blog followers who makes a comment on my blog this month.