Black and White show at River Arts

In this season of snow and darkness, the River Arts Gallery in Damariscotta has put together a remarkable show of artworks in all black and white, and gray. Some are photographs, some are sculptures, many are drawings, some are paintings or other kinds of wall art. But it is a great show, even allowing for my pleasure at their having included two of my works, which are below:

Called Big Snow, I painted this with gesso, acrylic paint and inks while the snow was blowing outside my barn windows.

Called Figure V, this was done with black oil paint and Q-tips, on yupo paper. Yupo is a new paper made from recycled plastics, kind of like white board. But if you make a drawing and don't like it, you can simply erase it all no matter what the material. But if you do like whatever you've created, you must put a spacer between the paper and the glass over it, or else it will smudge. While this drawing is far from perfect, it has some power to it, so I've left it as is, and it's in the show along with Big Snow.

In the meantime, in lieu of driving through the snow to Vermont for New Year's, I have spent the last two days painting all day! Tomorrow I will venture out into the snow, and go to Vermont with skiis, snowshoes, warm clothes, and new camera!

a sad and difficult day, after a beautiful fall

It leaves me nearly speechless, this latest bit of brutality committed by a young man with weapons and body armor in an elementary school. And, after a lifetime of avoiding the issue which ruined my ex-husband's political career, I think that I will make sensible gun control my dying issue.
Some background: I grew up where guns were not present though they were all around in Orono, Maine. People would always bring my father some venison, or moose, or even bear meat every fall, because he did not hunt though many of the men he worked with in the woods, did hunt. I went to Girl Scout camp, and then to a bigger summer camp in Sargentville, Maine, and learned to shoot a 22. I shoot well still.
My former husband learned to shoot in Vermont, and while he did not hunt, he did own a left-handed 22, and eventually, a shotgun that I gave him to keep the raccoons out of the chicken pen. When, however, he was elected to Congress, on a whim and without talking with either his staff or me, he signed on as a sponsor of a semi-automatic gun control bill. It was a decision with terrible consequences for him, and nearly for me and our 3 sons, although in the end I had to support his position.
In large measure, I made the decision to move to DC because of the harassment that both my sons in public schools, and myself at our home in the country, suffered. While nothing bad happened in the end, people would drive by the house and point their fingers at me. People watching us in parades would do the same. In the schools, several teachers spoke ill of my sons' father.The State Police had to be called one night after several threatening phone calls were received.
So, we moved and all of a sudden I understood the difference between guns used for hunting, and guns that are used primarily for killing people. My youngest son was 10 when we moved to DC. He and I were quite used to watching the evening news while eating supper. As a politician, his father was rarely home for dinner, and was often in Vermont, on TV news, so we were used to watching. In DC, however, David stopped watching the news. It was all about all the crime in DC rather than politics, and I began to see the difference in guns.
It has been impossible to articulate that difference with the NRA all over the issue with threats and money, and too much bull. But it is time to get on the bandwagon to stop this killing. We do know what to do - to control access to all guns reponsibly, to sell only after background checks are done nationally. Perhaps we should also restrict access to body armor also, since these latest killers all wore lots of body armor. But this is not Afghanistan! though we seem to be eager to let our young men own the weapons of war here at home.

It is time to make some changes! Please!

sandy colors

Hurricane Sandy was multicolored down here in Maine. The sketch above was done quickly before the last high tide which would have got me wet while painting. Now, the surf is diminished and the power lines are still up. But you get the idea.
Unhappily, color was not the issue down off Cape Hatteras, where HMS Bounty sank. Although 14 of her crew members were rescued by the Coast Guard, one crew member died, and her Captain remains unfound. Here in Boothbay, the Bounty was a fixture last month; her masts stuck up proudly, above what we might call our skyline, while on the ways at the Shipyard. Everyone here has had some contact with the ship or her crew, and we are all very sad.
Images of Sandy from now on, will undoubtedly reflect this sadness... even as I make a bigger painting from this sketch...

a new launch!

the tug, Winslow, will pull the new tug from her cradle....

and she won't get stuck like the first one I watched 3 years ago...

and then, she's in...

by herself...

she's really quite cute, as a tugboat goes...East Boothbay is proud, and there'll be some celebrating tonight!

Stewardship and Snow Showers

Our first frost happened two nights ago, on the very evening we had the opening for the Art in Maine show at the Art Foundation in the Harbor. "Snow Showers," the painting above, was juried in, and though it won no prizes, I am very pleased with its presence in the show. Several people have asked for giclees of it, so I will make 3-4, and see if I can sell them.
It is painted directly onto raw linen, and has a very textural, 3-D feel to it, which Dan Corey has called regal. I like that, and hope that because the paint is embedded in the fabric, that it will hold its tone and color for a long time.
Non-profit institutions, like art, have the same preservation issues - if you don't find enough money, you soon run out of creative material and/or helpful efforts. Tom Dewey, at our local congregational church, has challenged members of the church to multiply our "talents", as in the "parable of the talents," by handing out envelopes filled either with a heart candy, $10 or $20. The challenge is to multiply whatever is in the envelope, or, of course, you can bury it.
I got an envelope with a $20 in it. I have put it into a peanut butter jar with a hole in the top, and am collecting money to begin an emergency fund at the local food pantry. In one short week I gathered over $176, so now I have put $100 in one jar, and am working on getting the remaining $24 for the second jar, and will just keep going until the Sunday in November when we have to bring it all back in and report.
I am learning some interesting lessons while I do this. At a community gathering recently, I got out my jar at the end of the meal and went around asking people to "empty your pockets to fill a belly." I got a fair amount of money and was content to sit back down and eat dessert, when the fellow next to me started asking me about how we handled "freeloaders" at the Pantry. I was a bit offended, not really knowing any freeloaders who were receiving  food at our pantry. So I gave him a cocky reply about not getting many homeless men at the pantry. He gave me a look, knocked on his glass, stood up and announced to the crowd that I had not made $100 quite yet, and we needed to do that before anyone went home. Amazingly enough, people came flocking over and coughed up even more money, such that we made $135 or so dollars in just that one night.
I remain amazed and very grateful to the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club for their generosity.

moose work

I had such a good time at Daicey Pond in Baxter State Park, under the shadow of Mt. Ktaadn, that all my pics are quite cheerful...enjoy...

Ledge Falls is a series of wonderful, gentle falls over very smooth granite ledges. They are crowded with people sliding down them in the summer. This day on late September, they were gorgeous, warm and sunny, but not tempting to swim down.

This is Sandy Stream Pond looking up at the two great basins of Ktaadn. Pamola Peak, named for the Abnaki's evil god, is on the left, and is the northeastern end of the Knife Edge.The Knife Edge goes from there to the middle peak, which is the tallest and is named Baxter Peak, though the Abnaki's called it Ktaadn, for the good, kind god. The Saddle extends along the western side of the mountain.

I was painting this little pic when the bull moose came upon me. I remain very grateful that he did not choose to destroy me and the painting! But it is good moose territory!

This is Ktaadn as seen from our Daicey Pond campsite. It is much more representative of what the mountain actually feels like. It is very big, like the moose, and is often very intimidating. Its weather is unpredictable and highly changeable. But Percy Baxter did a wonderful thing for us State of Mainers when he preserved it forever wild. We are responsible for ourselves when we are visiting the Park, whether climbing or fishing or painting. We pack everything in and everything out.

I remain a bit anxious over my encounter with the bull moose, though I know they are generally not aggressive. Even so, all by myself, in rutting season, I felt quite vulnerable and definitely not in control - which is what the Park is good for remembering!

close encounters with mooses

This lovely cow moose welcomed 4 of us artists to Sandy Stream Pond in Baxter State Park last Thursday. Munching her way towards us, here she is considering her next move - towards us or across the pond. She opted for across the pond which was good since we were close to her, and it is rutting season. After this confrontation, we artists separated - 3 went to a rock facing Katahdin, but in the wind. I went to a small viewpoint, close to the water where I could sit in my chair, and behind some bushes, protected from the wind. I sat there happily painting for a couple of hours. Several clumps of people came by during this time, so I thought nothing - at first - of the sounds of clumping footsteps.
As they got closer, however, I also heard some munching sounds, at which point I began to think that what was behind me was not human. I carefully put down the little painting in a protected place, and turned my head around to the left. I was staring into the eyes of a huge bull moose, whose snout I could have patted. If I thought, I cannot remember what. So I slowly stood up, so that whatever might happen, I was at least looking eyeball to eyeball with him.
He was on the trail; I was at the side of it. I stood there, thinking to myself, "OK, Mr. Moose. I'm yours now."
If he had decided to come down the trail, I would have had to step backwards into the pond. But after staring at each other for a while - God only knows how long that was - Mr. Moose decided that I was not what he wanted, and he carefully went around me, and some bushes, then back onto the trail. Here he is:

Note the pulled back ears! He was still a bit worried about me, but not half as worried as I was. He was BIG, with a good sized rack!
Later that afternoon, as I was tottering back to Roaring Brook Ranger Station, I saw two moose in the woods, attempting to mate. I went from tottering to scurrying at that point, and was quite glad to get back to the Station.
Moose are not generally aggressive, except in rutting season which is now. I can remember my father coming home from a timber cruising trip, and telling a story about getting chased up a tree by furious bull moose. Perhaps it was my dad's testosterone that wound up his bull and my lack of it that kept my moose calm. Who knows? All I know was that I was at his mercy; he was way bigger than me and could have stomped me easily if he'd wanted to.
I am very grateful that, for whatever reason, he decided that it was better to chase after the cow we saw earlier that day, than it was to do something about me.
These encounters were the emotional highlight of my 5 day trip with 3 artists, led by Suzanne Brewer, artist in residence this summer at Baxter Park in the North Woods of Maine. We camped in a cabin at Daicey Pond, where I had been as a child with my cousin Jeanie. We painted each day at different places - Ledge Falls, Sandy Stream Pond, the eastern end of Ripogenus Gorge, always focussed up at Mt. Katahdin. Some times we went out of the Park and onto the Golden Road, a road built by the logging companies across the north woods. Most times we painted inside the Park, cooked dinner, visited with Charity and Dean Levasseur, rangers in the Park, and went to bed only to get up again at 6ish, when it got light and we could make it to the outhouse without flashlights. It was a fabulous time; the Park is a special place; the mountain is a very special mountain. But beware, you might confront a moose!