Autumn Meadow

Autumn meadow
with painter and sheep (it's Beaver Farm a few weeks ago, of course!) That's Dianne Morrow painting the old ram, Elvis.

To Autumn
by William Blake

O Autumn, Laden with fruit, and stain’d
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may’st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head.

The spirits of the air live in the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.’
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,
Then rose, girded himself, and o’er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

Catching up!

Ani and Guy Alma and me at the Plein Air at Beaver Farm exhibit. We are standing in front of paintings by Lynne Campbell and Stuart Shils.
Photo: Alexandra Tyng.

CATCHING UP

I was leading a blogging class two days ago which really brought home the fact that I have been blogging less and less these days! Ironic. It was especially embarrassing to be showing my students how to utilize a blog to update the news section on a website and have to explain that actually, gosh, I haven't updated my own in several months. Blush! I still love the medium, but I think that Facebook has tapped into my available balance of web energy, at times depleting it entirely. I still have a real-time life to live so any more time spent doing something else on-line means less time spent blogging. Oh well!

Also, I have been unusually busy with various projects. The most exciting one took place last Tuesday, November 3rd at Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia where the Plein Air at Beaver Farm exhibit took place to benefit Camphill Special School. I am still coming down from the rush of organizing this event, staging it and experiencing it. It was incredible! The attendance was more than twice than anticipated, we ran out of wine three times and half the work was sold in two and a half hours. I'm still a bit knocked back by all this, and so grateful to the many people who helped make this such a big success! Now I am caught up dealing with aftermath (ongoing!) All positive, I should add. To see an excellent, pithy, recap of the event with a few choice photos, head over to my friend Alex Tyng's blog. I thought she did a great job describing the evening.

Here are some shots of the evening, all taken by Courtney Coffman.

BEAUTY

I took this shot last weekend at Beaver Farm. For anyone who doesn't know, I have been helping organize a plein air event to benefit my son Henry's wonderful special needs school: Camphill Special School. The main painting day in August was sort of amazing (so much so that mention of Plein Air at Beaver Farm has gotten into several national and regional magazines!) However, some artists wanted to come back to finish up a piece or two, and a couple of people could not make the big day for various reasons, so we held a make-up day this past weekend. The skies were astonishing!

When I shot this I was intending possibly to work from it later to make a painting, but now that I've seen it on the screen there is something so complete about it that I think whatever I saw and loved is already fully expressed. So no need for me to go further with it...which is what I guess I am usually doing when I make a painting: expressing something further about reality. But sometimes the reality is enough.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

~e.e.cummings

Plein Air at Beaver Farm in American Artist

Wow!
Many thanks to Steve Doherty and the other folks at American Artist magazine for giving this wonderful shout-out to Plein Air at Beaver Farm. I love the way they arranged the many photos (and am thrilled to see Garth's photo of me painting the pigs made it in!) As always, if you want to zoom in and read the text, click pix to enlarge.



American Artist
November 2009
page 8
Photo credits: Carol Goetz, Garth Herrick and Nancy Bea Miller

Plein Air at Beaver Farm!

Art for a Good Cause
I have been busy organizing a plein air day to benefit my son Henry's wonderful special needs school, Camphill Special School. Specifically I am aiming to raise funds and awareness of their program for the 18 to 21 year olds who require special skills and training as they make the transition from school to adult programs. This what is called the Transition Program, and the school recently bought a neighboring property to house it, Beaver Farm, which is wonderful and beautiful but needs some renovation and construction to enlarge and expand.

On August 8th, 34 artists converged on Beaver Farm in Phoenixville PA for a wonderful day of painting, delicious food and camaraderie. The weather gods cooperated and so did everyone else. Joyful reunions were happening all over the place as old friends saw one another again, and many new friends met for the first time, too.

Of course the main attraction was art-making. This working biodynamic farm is a place of such quiet but intense beauty many of the artists felt almost overwhelmed by choices. However this is a nice problem to have, and everyone got right to work (usually after a brief period of helpless gaping in all directions!) I invited all kinds of artists, from realists to abstractionists, photographers and printmakers, oil painters, digital artists, encaustic artists: all people whose work I admire and whom I respect as artists and human beings:


Rachel Constantine in the kitchen garden


John Sevcik tackled the big old farmhouse


Stuart Shils at work under the tall trees


Eliza Auth worked both in pastels and in oils


Nancy Bea Miller by the wildflower bed


Marianne Mitchell stops to take a look at her piece in progress


Jeffrey Reed contemplating his next piece


Al Gury and Nancy Bea Miller


Rebecca Thornburgh, Jo-Ann Osnoe, Dianne Morrow, David Lee, Mary Walsh, Elizabeth Wilson, Alex Tyng et. al.



Aina Roman breaking in a new french easel and experimenting like crazy!


Ellen Cooper painting through the roses


Paul DuSold faces the paparazzi with good grace


Giovanni Casedei was so absorbed in his work he didn't notice


Suzy Schireson tackled the silo


Elaine Lisle got some canine companionship


Alex Tyng painting by the laundry line


Ellen Cooper, Laura Kaderabeck Eyring and Frances Galante, hard at it


Fred Danziger and one of his miniatures, with Stuart Shils


Sarah Barr and her big ass big old large format camera


Garth Herrick out sitting in the field


Betsey Batchelor and "her" tree


The stragglers pose for one more shot at the end of an utterly amazing day! Participating artists not previously mentioned include Michael Bartmann, Joe Sweeney, Lynne Campbell, Dale Roberts, Fay Stanford, John Ennis, Valerie Craig, Carla Tudor, Elana Hagler, Jon Redmond, Mark Bockrath and Mary Hiltbrandt. Thank you so much everyone!

A one day exhibit and sale of the work to benefit Camphill Special School, will be held November 3, reception 5:30-8 pm at Rosenfeld Gallery, 113 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106
All are welcome!

For more information on the event, just click Plein Air at Beaver Farm!