Friend Friday

I have three amazing friends showing their work in a four person show opening this weekend at Haynes Gallery in Thomaston, Maine! The show,  Four Figurative Artists, features the works of three of my favorite artists and people: Ellen Cooper, Renee Foulks and Lea Colie Wight (Ryan S. Brown, whom I do not know, is also exhibiting.)


Four Figurative Artists

August 3 to August 28. 

Reception: August 3, 6 to 8 p.m.

The Haynes Galleries
91 Main Street
Thomaston, ME 

Jenn  Lea Colie Wight

Charnée  Renee Foulks

Cup and Vessel  Ellen Cooper

My welcome home!

I'm just back home from a week painting on Monhegan Island, fourteen miles out from the coast of Maine. When I stumbled in the door around midnight this vase of flowers was the first thing I saw...very sweet! (I think my guys missed me.)



On the way home in the car my oldest son P, age 16, texted me (I was not driving at that point, no worries) with the wonderful news that he'd just won his latest cross country meet, set a new personal best and a new school record and is now ranked nationally! Oh my gosh. Wow! My husband stitched together these shots of P running then (middle school) and now...how quickly time races by. I was so sorry I'd had to miss this particular race. But what happy news to come home to!




End result: I brought home 14 paintings in various stages of finish. I have two galleries in Maine that show my work and have been asking for more, so this was really a business trip believe it or not! I'm also gearing up for a one person show at a gallery in Philadelphia next spring. My plein air work is not standard quaint landscape views, so despite these being inspired by Maine, the work does not seem to be limited to a regional audience (thank goodness!) Here are all fourteen pieces being shown to the sun this morning. I unpacked the pieces, most still sloppily wet, and took advantage of the brilliant weather to try and dry them a little. The squirrels and morning doves are usually my first audience after a business trip.

Light House

On the highest hill,
the lighthouse sits flaming
in the setting sun



Took this shot during last year's trip to Monhegan Island. I thought of it again when I saw that One Single Impression's theme today was Lighthouse.

Short but Sweet

Painting Like the Wind

I was on Monhegan Island painting a few days ago...an annual week-long trip with a group of painter friends. We rent a cottage together, share meals and crits: it's a wonderful thing. However this year one of the group fell ill, and there is no medical care on island (unless you count the sparse rack of Benadryl and Tylenol at the Monhegan Store!) After a few days with no improvement it became obvious that some of us were going to have to take her all the way back home. I, with one other friend, performed that service. It's a very long trip involving packing, walking, taking a ferry and then capped by a ten hour drive...too far to turn right around and go back for the sake of just one more day (although I certainly thought about it!)

Anyway, yesterday I was slowly and glumly unpacking my gear, glad to have done the right thing by my friend but also wishing at the same time that I was still back on Monhegan. I felt a little disoriented, along the lines of "What am I doing here?" I had been so set, so ready, so primed, to be on my favorite island and now I was back home, a little too abruptly for my inner sense of balance. But my sick friend was grateful, my family thrilled to have me home early, and it's not the end of the world. The afternoon sun was brilliant and hot and so I decided to let the wet paintings from the trip catch a few rays (this helps them dry faster.) When I unpacked them and laid them out I was absolutely stunned to find that in the few short days on Monhegan I'd painted nine panels en plein air!

On Monhegan one of my friends commented that I was painting like I was on fire, and apparently she was right. The sense of urgency was so all-encompassing that I had not even realized how many I pieces I'd begun. Of course, they are small pieces, and unfinished, but nonetheless a happy surprise. I'll complete some of the more finished ones up from photos and memory and save the rest for next year's Monhegan trip and finish them up then (if the fates allow!)

I Rented a Lobster

Strange but true. I wanted to paint a lobster, partly because I was invited to participate in a Lobster themed show at gWatson Gallery this summer. I was delighted to be invited, and actually, the idea of painting a lobster had been in my head for some time. Not surprising as I am a food painter, and I also paint in Maine! Kind of an "Oh yeah, duh!" equation. It was just a question of when I was going to get around to it, and this invitation proved the catalyst.

But the obstacle: killing a lobster so I could paint her. Hmm. Lobsters go bad pretty quickly after they're cooked so I'd probably have to work fast and then end up finishing the painting from a photo: unappealing! I only paint still life from life. Plus, in any case very likely the lobster would spoil and have to be trashed, uneaten. What a waste! For all kinds of reasons I was balking.

Then a friend who is a set designer for commercials told me about props rentals! Wow, what a revelation! She took me to an amazing warehouse stuffed floor to ceiling with all kinds of props: furniture, musical instruments, stuffed animals and of course, fake food! My lobster is extremely realistic and comes from the Japanese faux food industry..verisimilitude is paramount! He costs 10 cents a day to rent, and I have become very fond of him. I am feeling reluctant to "throw him back" althought the painting is not only finished and framed but I delivered it by hand to the gallery in Maine on Friday! (I put the trip pictures in an album on Facebook: email me if you want an invitation to view!)

Lobster with Brioche, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches

NEVER ENDING

Painting in the graveyard,
overlooking the busy town
and the endless sky

I heard today that my first (and only) landscape painting teacher, Louis B. Sloan, died just a few days ago. Although Lou was getting up there in years (I think he was 78) he was as active as ever. In fact, I was told that he died very suddenly as he was preparing to go out for a day of autumn painting with students. What a wonderful man, gifted artist and devoted teacher. I can just see Lou settling down before a canvas in heaven with a happy sigh. "Now that's beautiful!"



Louis B. Sloan, Self-Portrait in a Field of Flowers, oil on canvas, 40 x 50 inches

PUG KISSES
I remembered that my friend Eliza used to have a pug, and still has a fondness for the breed. So I called out to her when I saw the pugs from the window. Eliza hurried out of the house and in no time at all I was watching a spontaneous frenzy of pug love.

PUG BEACH
is what I started calling it in my mind after these two showed up in their ATV. You never saw a cuter pair of pooches, and well-behaved too. This is actually Fish Beach on Monhegan Island. I was painting a picture out a second floor window of the house we were renting when these two pugs and their people arrived to steal my attention away momentarily.

The Incredible Sunset
over Manana, was one of the highlights of my recent trip to Monhegan Island. My friend Alex and I had been painting deep in the interior of the island, in Cathedral Woods, and lost track of time. Gradually we realized it was getting too dark in there to paint, so being reasonably satisfied with our efforts, we packed up and made our way out. Only to realize that while we'd been painting shadowy gloom and chiaroscura in the woods, a fantastic spectacle of light was being mounted above us!

Despite knowing we were already late for dinner, we stashed our painting gear in a convenient shrub and then positively ran up the steep Lighthouse Hill (no small feat), eager to get the best vantage point. And how incredibly beautiful it was! There were a dozen other glow hunters up there with us, and all of us with beatific smiles on our faces, as we watched the sun gently roll into the sea.

FORTUNE

What chance threw these seeds
on this rockpile - roots gripping,
sharp leaves raised to fight?

A WEEK'S WORK

I came back just last night from a week of painting on Monhegan Island, Maine. My friend Mary W. who was part of the group of painter friends renting the island house with me, pointed out that it was really a business trip, and of course she is right! Lots of hard work: hiking around and painting like mad. I was out working from first light to last light most days (we did have a couple of foggy/rainy days thanks to the tail end of a hurricane or two but I painted inside then.) I did not keep track of how many pieces I was doing while I was there, but today I unpacked the pictures and set them all up on my studio easel to have a look and see that I have fifteen studies. Stalin was referring to Russian tank production during WWII when he said "Quantity has a quality all its own." but I think it applies equally well to plein air painting!

BEAUTIFUL INFINITY

The World

I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright,
And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, years
Driven by the spheres
Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world
And all her train were hurl'd...

-Henry Vaughan (April 17, 1622 − April 28, 1695)

MISTY MOUNTAIN
You'd never know, but this is The Beehive, at Acadia State Park in Maine. For Photo Friday's challenge: mist. I used the Accented Edges filter in PhotoShop to add a little drama.

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
-Carl Sandburg

RAINBOW
piercing the early evening mist. Long Pond on Mount Desert Island, Maine.

IT'S SCARY
how fast they disappeared. Inspired by a visit last month to Jordan Pond House, I made popovers for the very first time last night. They were extremely successful, to say the least. However, trying to follow the directions which instructed me to fill each cup halfway, I found myself confused by the tapering nature of the cups. What was halfway? Did they mean halfway lengthwise, or volume-wise? The last thing I wanted was overflowing batter charring on the floor of the oven (because I am too lazy to clean it) and so I erred on the side of filling the cups a little scantily. The popovers rose like crazy, but without enough volume to actually pop over (overflow) and I had enough batter left for two more after the original six came out. I smugly thought how nice it would be to have those two all ready for the boys' breakfast the next day, but a friend dropped in unexpectedly and soon there was not one speck of popover left over.

Which is, of course, how it should be.

JORDAN POND HOUSE POPOVER RECIPE
(this is from the recipe card that came with the pan I bought in their gift shop. I edited it slightly.)

1 popover pan
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter,
cut into six even pieces
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 400F and set oven rack in middle position.

Blend flour, salt, eggs, milk and melted butter until mixture is smooth and has the consistency of heavy cream, about 1 or 2 minutes in an electric mixer. (note: the batter can be made ahead and stored in the fridge but should be brought back to room temp before using.)

Oil or spray popover pan. Then preheat popover pan by placing in oven about for 2 minutes. Remove and place 1 small piece of butter in each cup. Place pans back in oven until butter is bubbly, about 1 minute. Fill each cup half full with batter and bake 20 minutes. Reduce temp to 300F and continue baking 20 minutes.

Makes 6 full-sized popovers (or 8 more slender ones if you are new to the job like me!)

Popovers are best hot from the oven, served with butter and jam.

ISLAND TRUCK
There is something about islands. Maybe people who are attracted to island living have an eccentric streak? Or aren't as concerned about mainstream (mainland) fashions or conformity. Whatever, I always feel some deep inner muscle unclench when I step foot onto an island. And I guess other people feel that too, then reach for their spray paint.

This is from last month's visit to Monhegan Island, but I just finished reading The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island which is set on Isle au Haut. It sounds like that island too has a very colorful population. And even has some colorful trucks!

ROADSIDE SHACK
made me wonder what kind of commercial traffic they were trying to fend off with that sign. Seemed mostly hikers and birdwatchers passing by when I was there. Maybe they are defending themselves against the seasonal droves of little girls selling girl scout cookies? ;-)

REFLECTION
is the topic of today's Theme Thursday. While I hate to be one of those people who holds you captive while showing endless shots of their recent vacation, I just had to use this lovely bridge I photographed on Mount Desert Island during last week's painting trip to Maine.




By the way, the cook at Genre Cookshop was delighted to receive this little badge of honor the other day for the Thinking Blogger Award. The talented Alex Shur of Winged Heels gave GC this compliment, many thanks! Less appealing is that I'm now supposed to name five other people I think should receive the award. This is a task about which I feel very wary: the according of laurels. I was once invited (and paid!) to be a judge at an art show, and it was some of the hardest work I ever did. (I think I lost about three pounds that day from nerves and sweat and stress.) Making the task more difficult, many of the blogs I frequent have already received this Thinking Blogger Award. I'm a little late joining the party (what else is new?) so I would have to research whom amongst my favorite blogs has not yet gotten one of these. If I can handle it, I'll come back with my five honorees later.

A MISTY GLIMPSE
of the beach from a cliff path. This is Sand Beach in Acadia National Park. My friends and I were happily painting in front of The Beehive, when clouds and fog came rolling in with startling swiftness. People who'd been sunning themselves on the beach in bikinis slipped back into jeans and hooded sweatshirts, mothers started herding their offspring away from the gray water and we painters packed up our gear with lightning speed. Everyone seemed remarkably cheerful and stoic about the sudden change in the weather. "Well, now, that's just Maine for you!" I heard someone say with an easy laugh.