Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day! (A scene from my town's parade, about an hour ago.)

Homegrown Peonies

The poor, struggling peony that was here when we bought the house has managed to produce three viable buds this year. (Last year it had none!) I was briefly undecided if I should let it continue to  grace the side of the house with its small splash of color, or cut the blooms to bring indoors for more study and admiration. The latter decision is what I went with, obviously. The color is almost too intense, too incandescent for my eyes, but as Ralph Ellison said, "Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked."  

Another Ralph's poem about May flowers and the nature of beauty also comes to mind:

The Rhodora

On being asked, whence is the flower.

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals fallen in the pool
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask; I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson (1847)

The End of Days

...of my current show at Artists' House Gallery! Exhibition dates May 6-29, 2011, and I can't believe that we are nearing the close of this run. It feels like only yesterday that I was hamming it up at the opening reception:

(Thanks to Elaine Lisle for this strange but interesting photograph!)

Here's a few images of some pieces in the show:

Arrangement for Ukulele, oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches

Coconut Cupcake, oil on linen, 7 x 5 inches

Duck in a Box, oil on cardboard, 6 x 6 inches

Green and Yellow, oil on Cardboard, 8 x 10 inches

Joined, oil on canvas, 10 x 8 inches

Little Crocus (Blue Pearl), oil on canvas, 6 x 4 inches

Open Hand, oil on linen, 9 x 12 inches

Amber Dreaming, oil on canvas, 28 x 24 inches

Mill Pond (Somesville Library), oil on linen, 12 x 16 inches

I'm grateful to the many friends, neighbors, collectors and family members who came to see the work in person! To read a sweet write-up on the show click here. More information, if desired, can be found on the Artists' House website. Any exhibit, even a one-person exhibit, is always a group effort, and my grateful thanks to all involved: gallerists, framers, bloggers, writers, buyers, viewers, visitors, commissioners, encouragers and well-wishers.

Summa Cum Laude

Life has been a real roller coaster these past few weeks. My one person show opening in Philadelphia on Mother's day Sunday... up! That same night my Mom being hospitalized in Connecticut...down! And many many more ups and downs coming thick and fast, sometimes seemingly within the same minute. But here's a nice solid thing that happened in the midst of much confusion: Hugh was awarded a gold medal in the National Latin Examination, receiving a certificate Summa Cum Laude for Outstanding Performance!

Labor omnia vincit (I hope!)