the accidental artist

Mt. Humphreys

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 18:30:00 +0000

Mt. Humphreys / Oil on black canvas / 12x36

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to own this painting

ON THE WAY TO TUBAC, Carol and I decided to visit the Grand Canyon. It was out of our way, but not by much. Though we had been there a couple years ago, when Carol came out to do a show in Albuquerque with me, well, it is the Grand Canyon, so we decided to go again.

We chose a scenic route, a road I've traveled before, that winds along 8,000-foot-high mountains and overlooks ones that are even higher, including Mount Humphreys, the tallest one in the painting.

It was a cool morning when we pulled off the road by a yellow field to paint. The sun was shining, the air was thin and clear, and it was so quiet that I could hear a raven's wings flapping as he flew past me.

I loved making this painting, and feel that it captures the beauty and serenity of the spot, and somehow, the enormity of it as well.

When I finished, we headed on to the Grand Canyon, only to turn back, as there was a two-hour wait to get in. The Indian reservations are closed because of the covid, and the terrible toll it is taking on the Native American population. Because of that, one of the two wintertime gates into the park was closed, and all the visitors - and there were lots of them! - were funneled into one gate.

So we left, and headed to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, and though it wasn't the Grand Canyon, it was a magical spot of color and wonder and incredible beauty.

***

Dog of the Day

I'VE SEEN THIS lovely, porky gal around town on nearly all my morning walks. She is a sweetie, and is usually off leash, so she trots her full-bellied trot up to me and greets me every day.

***

Thought for the Road

It Is Enough to Enter

the templar

halls of museums, for

example, or

the chamber of churches,

and admire
no more than the beauty

there, or
remember the graveness

of stone, or
whatever. You don't

have to do any
better. You don't have to

understand
the liturgy or know history

to feel holy
in a gallery or presbytery.

It is enough
to have come just so far.

You need
not be opened any more

than does
a door, standing ajar.

- Todd Boss

Duck Butts

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 19:30:00 +0000

Duck Butts / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping
Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you would like to buy this painting

I SEE THE DUCKS AND GEESE in Wachapreague in the winters, or anywhere, for that matter, diving into such frigid water, wet and small in the face of the biting, icy wind, and it seems impossible that they don't get cold, that they don't just die from exposure.

I guess that's part of what it means to be a duck. It is part of the duck's world. And maybe they look at us and wonder - why don't those creatures walk so much - are they just too stupid to fly?

***

A Thought for the Road

April is a Dog's Dream

april is a dog's dream

the soft grass is growing

the sweet breeze is blowing

the air all full of singing feels just right

so no excuses now

we're going to the park

to chase and charge and chew

and I will make you see

what spring is all about

- Marilyn Singer

Dry Wash

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 17:30:00 +0000

Dry Wash / Oil on black canvas / 11x14 / $250 including shipping.

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you would like to buy this painting!

THE LANDSCAPE OF THE SOUTHWEST always inspires me. It challenges me, forcing me to use different colors, try different approaches, think and see and paint differently. It's exciting, and it's often difficult, and is always liberating - and surprising, too, which is a good thing for me.

This painting, like so many of the paintings I've made that have turned out to be my favorites, is of a nothing sort of place. There's a teeny shopping plaza up the street, and to get from there to the road, on one side, you go over a bridge that crosses a dry wash. I looked up as we crossed it the other day, and the light was bouncing off the weedy shrubs, the mesquites, the dry pinkish soil, and I knew it was a painting. I could see the painting before it was finished. Before I even started it.

It's a bridge I've crossed dozens, if not hundreds of times in the decade that I've been coming out here, and it is a landscape I've never noticed. One that I'd bet almost no one notices. But these places, these quotidian, unremarkable, characteristic spots, these are the ones that build a landscape, aren't they? Just as the unremarkable, daily, regular remarks and thoughts and hopes and dreams are what build our characters and personalities.

Or at least, that's what I think this morning.

***

Dog of the Day

I'VE BEEN WALKING around Tubac in the mornings, and making a special side trip to see the burros in a farm/ranch place at the east edge of town. You KNOW this will become a painting!

***

A Thought for the Road

"Refuse to be average. Let your heart soar as it will."

- A. W. Tozer

(Thanks to my sister for suggesting this header for the final area. It's the best so far.

Do you have a different idea? I'm open to suggestions! )

Moriarty, NM

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Fri, 02 Apr 2021 18:00:00 +0000

Moriarty, NM / Oil on black canvas / 8x10 / $120 including shipping

sold!

THE FIRST PAINTING of a trip always frightens me. I haven't painted for the days of driving, and usually also for many days before the trip, while I was getting ready.

Painting came to me out of the blue, and so I often wonder if, one day, it will go away, as fully and as mysteriously as it appeared. The run-up to the first painting of a trip is inevitably filled with these unhelpful thoughts.

On this trip, I didn't plan this first painting. I didn't promise myself anything, I didn't expect anything. We pulled off in a rest stop in Moriarty, NM, and I looked across the highway at the landscape and decided this would be it. I got my stuff together and I started the painting before I had time to worry myself out of it.

I painted fast, and without thought, and I was grateful. My best paintings are the fastest ones, and the ones I dither over the least. I love the way this one came out. It is bright, and simple, but has a lot in it, too.

And for me, the best part was that it was done! The first painting was out of the way. YAY!

***

Dog of the Day

Nice gig if you can get it. Saw this cutie in Walmart in Sahuarita, Arizona.

***

Coda

"Some cowboys have too much tumbleweed in their blood to settle down."

- Ken Alstad

Moonday Owl

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 18:30:00 +0000

Moonday Owl / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you would like to own this little painting!

MY FRIEND CAROL AND I have arrived in Arizona, and I have to say, it feels great, so great, to be off the Eastern Shore and out in the world.

We had a great trip, did some cool stuff, met some fun people, including the couple below - the Langs - who fixed up this school bus and then both quit their regular nursing jobs to hit the road, and work in temporary nursing positions for as long as the adventure continues.

Here's their bus, outside and in. That's a little woodstove in the back, keeping things nice and warm!

They brought Lars, their Flemish Giant!

***

WE HAD GREAT BARBECUE at Tyler's in Amarillo, Texas

***

HAD FUN SEEING CADILLAC Ranch, outside of Amarillo (and painting a car, too). Click here to read more about this fun public art extravaganza

***

WE VISITED Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, NM, where would-be scuba divers were being trained...

***

AND DROVE THROUGH Tucumcari, NM, with its great billboards and funky decorations

What a country this is!

***

Coda

"Once a year, go someplace you've never been before."

- the Dalai Lama

Cape Charles Sunset

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 17:24:00 +0000

Cape Charles Sunset / oil on black canvas / 11x14 / $250

sold

MY KOKO is staying with my friend Susan while I'm in Arizona, and Koko's absence has changed the dynamic of this house more that I ever thought it would. And it's changed my view of her, as well.

Every morning, when she is here, she comes into the bedroom and greets me, wagging and curling her body around in a circle, so that her wagging tail is close to her nose. Often, she sniffs my butt with that always wet, always cold nose, then stations herself in front of me begging to be petted, blocking me step by step as I try to walk into the kitchen.

When it's time for breakfast - and she knows the time with remarkable accuracy and certainty - she barks and barks and leaps into the air, spinning around in circles in her excitement. She gets the other dogs all riled up, too. I put down Woody's food first, then I get the Demons into their apartment and put down their food and shut their door, and at this, Koko jumps up, bonks me in the butt with her forepaws, and runs into the kitchen where she barks and spins around in circles before spending all of 8 or 9 seconds devouring her meal.

Koko knows what time I should go to the studio, and if I seem to not be complying, stands in front of me and barks until I either shut her down or give in. When I pick up my phone , and unplug the computer to go to the studio, she barks wildly and leaps around. Then, outside, she finds a toy or a stick and comes charging at me in her play run, front legs stiff, shaking her head and murdering whatever she has between her mouth.

At the end of the studio time, when I turn off the heater and the lights, she often jumps up on me (this is forbidden), begging for kisses, and then she barks and spins, so happy to be going inside.

When I pull out the leashes for our walk, she barks and leaps and spins and stirs everyone up. We often meet Liesl, my walking partner, in the street, and I will drop Koko's leash when I see Liesl coming around the corner, and let Koko run down Bayview to greet Liesl. Koko races down the road, tail wagging, and jumps up on Liesl, kissing her and groaning at her, with funny little throaty groans.

Whenever visitors come to the house, Koko adores them. She greets with barking, jumping delight, and climbs up in their laps, staying as long as they will allow her. In the evenings, Koko snuggles between my legs on the couch, demanding to be petted, often licking me until I have to yell at her to make her stop. And at the end of the day, she jumps up on the bed, snuggling - and then leaves to sleep in a chair in the living room.

Her behavior and how I feel with her gone makes me think of my own self, and how Peter must have felt when I went away on trips. Koko is a lot to handle. I am a lot to handle. Koko is loud, enthusiastic, demanding. I am loud, enthusiastic, demanding. Annoying, even. But I miss her loud, irritating, annoying enthusiasm. The days without her have been less colorful, less fun, less full of life. I am pretty sure this is how Peter felt. On one hand, it was good to get a break from me. On the other hand, life was less interesting without me here.

Until Koko went to stay with Susan, I did not know that Koko was the enthusiasm leader of the pack. I didn't realize how much energy she has, how much delight she pumps into the days. I did not realize that it was her, more than any of the others, who required me to keep living after Peter died. I just didn't know. And while I'm sure I will be irritated with her from time to time when she comes back, I know from now on, I will go far out of my way to adore her, to honor the blessing that she is in my life.

Above, Koko and Lulu, when Lulu was a puppy

Koko waiting to see Liesl

She wanted that cookie so much, I eventually gave it to her.

***

Coda

Every Dog's Story

I have a bed, my very own.

It's just my size.

And sometimes I like to sleep alone

with dreams inside my eyes.

But sometimes dreams are dark and wild and creepy

and I wake and am afraid, though I don't know why.

But I'm no longer sleepy

and too slowly the hours go by.

So I climb on the bed where the light of the moon

is shining on your face

and I know it will be morning soon.

Everybody needs a safe place.

- Mary Oliver

The Marsh in Spring

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 17:00:00 +0000

The Marsh in Spring / Oil on black canvas/ 11x14/ $250 plus shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to buy this painting!

IN PART OF "THE ROAD IN," yesterday's entry here on the blog, I found myself using long strokes, full of paint, rather than the short, choppy, juddering strokes I usually use - and it felt like a new world was opening up for me.

I think that the more kinds of strokes I master and can use in any painting, the more colors I actually learn and know, the more potential my paintings have to be interesting, expressive, reflective.

I've used long, swirly strokes in the skies for a while, but never, as far as I can remember, for the ground. Making the long strokes in the painting above felt like pulling back sheer curtains to see more clearly the window behind them. The view hasn't changed - it is just more clear.

***

Coda

The Uses of Sorrow

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift."

- Mary Oliver

The Way In

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 18:30:00 +0000

The Way In / Oil on black canvas / 16x20 / $500 including shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to buy this painting

TO MY AMAZEMENT, I have started dating. It was a brief experience, and it ended not well but not horribly, and while the whole thing utterly shocked me, it was an important if painful step, and I feel blessed and grateful to have taken it.

The person with whom I was involved could not have been more different from Peter, and perhaps that made the whole thing easier - though none of it was easy. I wept for taking my heart away from for grieving for Peter. I trembled at what felt, at first, like a betrayal of him. I scolded myself for taking this respite from grief. But I went ahead.

It was hard to take that big step into living again, and to be reminded, with each inch of road I traveled, that I was edging away from Peter, from grief, from my old life, even, in a way, from my old self. Taking a first, brief journey on what might or might not be a long new road.

I had thought I'd be alone forever, that love would live only as a memory, and that that would be enough. And who knows? Maybe this small and, in the end, unhappy romance was the only one that will come my way between now and whenever I am too old. But maybe it's not.

And even with the pain of failure and breakup - a pain I haven't felt or considered for 40 years - I hope it's not the only one. But if it is, I still believe it was important to do this, to wager my heart on the hand of love.

***

Coda

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mind.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

- Mary Oliver

Cardinal in a Dogwood Tree

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 17:00:00 +0000

Cardinal in a Dogwood Tree / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to buy this painting

THE CARDINALS HAVE BEEN FLOCKING to the feeder, and it makes me happy to see them.

The males catch my eye, always, but it's the females I find myself watching, and enjoying their subtle colors, the way their plumage blends with the still wintry, mustard-colored grass. In fact, thinking about them this morning, the way they flit and flash and tilt their heads, feathers showing orange and yellow and even a hint of green, thinking about them has spurred me to make another painting of a female.

***

IN A WEEK, if all goes according to plan, I leave for Arizona for about a month. This is my usual winter trip to visit Dad and Paula, though this time, it will be different.

For starters, I usually head out in late January. I've never been there in March and April, and am hoping to see the desert in a little bit of bloom, and the country, in fact, in a little bit of bloom.

Usually, I choose my route to avoid snowstorms and ice storms. And while they are still out there, or were, this week, it will probably be spring storms, thunder and lightning, tornadoes, that I'll be trying to avoid.

My friend Carol is coming with me this time. I've never made the trip with another person in the car, and while I am a little hesitant about it, and about not having those long, lonely hours on my own, driving and watching in silence, I think it's probably good this trip to not have those long, lonely hours on my own, driving and watching in silence.

We will stay for a few weeks, spend lots of time with Dad and Paula, and I will paint, on the way, out there and on the way back. I am not doing a formal painting trip this time, but will post the paintings and the story of my travels, here on the blog.

I have a lot to do before I leave, but it will get done. I am so hungry to see and paint and drive through a different landscape, I can barely wait to go!

***

Coda

"I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart."

- Vincent Van Gogh

Spring Fields

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 18:30:00 +0000

Spring Fields / Oil on canvas / 18x24 / $650 plus shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to own this painting!

SO MUCH RAIN HAS FALLEN that now, even after a week of sun and wind, there are puddles in the fields, and in the lawns and throughout the low places in the woods. I love the way these bits of standing water pick up the colors of the sky, and put them where they should not be - a little bit of heaven in the middle of a field.

I noticed the other day that around the puddles in some of the fields, grass or clover or whatever is planted there has started to green up, in a beautiful circle around the puddle. Water of life, certainly.

I love painting fields, with the furrows leading somewhere - usually to a house or barn in the back of the field. But on a drive to Frederick, Maryland, this past weekend, I noticed fields with furrows leading off obliquely, and in patterns.

Different, for me - and I like it. What do you think?

***

Coda

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold; when it is summer in the light and winter in the shade."

- Charles Dickens, by way of my friend Lisa Zander

Bluebird with a Blueberry

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 19:21:00 +0000

Bluebird with a Blueberry / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold

A COUPLE OF MY DAFFODILS have bloomed - and I celebrate this today, but the process has been excruciating. I've watched them every day, sometimes, it feels like every minute, waiting for the green to turn to yellow. Finally, today, it happened.

I feel eager for so much. Impatient. I am the watched pot, or maybe I am the watcher. Either way, it's a journey of degrees. Inches. Moments.

And all of it goes against what I'm trying to learn in this time of Lent - to live, balanced and complete in this moment.

I can't stop myself from imagining, from waiting for the end of the covid, of the isolation, the imposed solitariness. The presence of my family in my visual and tangible life, after more than a year.

I'm waiting for the wind to warm, for vegetables to be bright and fresh, for fruit to be sweet and juicy and cheap and plentiful. I'm watching for the perennials to start poking their heads through the weedy mulch, promising color after all these drab days of winter.

I am impatient, yearning, hardly able to contain myself. Aren't we all?

***

Coda

"One never learns by success."

-Josephine Preston Peabody

House Sparrow

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 19:11:00 +0000

House Sparrow / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68, including shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like this painting

LAST WEEK, I heard a spring bird, singing wildly, singing beautifully, repeating her song again and again as night spun off into dawn.

She made me happy, this one bird, singing as though there were no tomorrows and no yesterdays, as though everything that possibly could be right in the world was indeed right in the world.

She made me smile, and made me realize that, in my heavy, plodding two-footed, wingless life, in fact, everything is as right as it could possibly be.

***

Coda

"Ambition is the spur that makes man struggle with destiny. It is heaven's own incentive

to make purpose great and achievement greater."

- Donald G. Mitchell

My Octopus Teacher

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 19:10:00 +0000

My Octopus Teacher / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold

A WHILE AGO, I asked friends on and off Facebook to give me names of what I call "feel-good movies," which, in my mind, are generally (but not always) smaller movies, generally but not always with lesser-known actors.

My friends assembled a great list, which I've included below. I'm not sure that all of these qualify as "feel-good," but I've included even the ones that I think maybe are just comedies, and not necessarily feel-good movies. I'd put "A Fish Called Wanda" in this category, for instance.

I am not sure that "My Octopus Teacher" qualifies as a feel-good movie, mainly because the octopus dies. The narrator (who is the only other character in the movie) tells you right at the beginning that the octopus is going to die, so I was prepared. But I have avoided all sort of movies because it is clear to me, sometimes even from the titles, that the dog/cat/squirrel/whatever was going to die.

The movie so enchanted me, octopus death notwithstanding, that I made this painting.

OK, here's the list. If there are movies on it that you sort of remember from a while ago, but haven't seen in a few years, I encourage you to go back and take a look. I've been delighted when I've done that.

Big Night

The Thomas Crown Affair

My Octopus Teacher

The Birdcage

Enola Holmes

Bread & Tulips (available on YouTube)

Legally Blonde

October Sky

Shirley Valentine

American Dreamer

Must Love Dogs

City Island

Strictly Ballroom

Tin Cup

Radium Girls

The Goldfinch

Don't Let Go

Genius

Tiger

Just Mercy

Penguin Bloom

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

A Model for Matisse

Waking Ned Devine

Billy Elliot

The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Big Little Farm

Little Miss Sunshine

Funny Farm

Keeping Mum

Lars and the Real Girl

Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Baghdad Cafe

Harold & Maude

Notting Hill

Love Actually

Dear Frankie

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Mrs. Palfrey at the Clermont

Tea with Mussolini

Madame Souzatska

A League of Their Own

Hunt for the Wilder People

Whale River

Garden State

School of Rock

Julie and Julia

Something's Gotta Give

Rudy

Inn of the Sixth Happiness

The Holiday

Chef

Hamlet 2

What About Bob

Someone Like You

Crazy, Stupid Love

Hairspray

Goonies

Silver Linings Playback

The Fisher King

The Princess Bride

When Harry Met Sally

My Cousin Vinny

Joe's Apartment

Angel in the House

Hugo

Pleasantville

Wall-E

The Station Agent

The Dig

Nobody's Fool

Keep On Keepin' On

The American President

Dave

Romancing the Stone

Please Don't Eat the Daisies

The Hundred-Foot Journey

A Knight's Tale

The Intern

It Happened on Fifth Avenue

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Operation Petticoat

Some Like It Hot

any Studio Ghibli film

Amalie

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

While You Were Sleeping

Sleepless in Seattle

When Harry Met Sally

Finding Your Feet

Grumpy Old Men

Peanut Butter Falcon

Second Hand Lions

The Proposal

Nothing to Lose

The Magic of Belle Isle

Slumdog Millionaire

Yesterday

Fool's Gold

Blow the Man Down

Shakespeare in Love

Book Club

Enchanted April

Women

Under the Tuscan Sun

Mr. Holland's Opus

The Secret Garden

The Full Monty

Two Family House

Say Anything

Begin Again

Truly, Madly, Deeply
Singing in the Rain

Heaven Can Wait

***

Coda

"Your aspirations are your possibilities."

- Samuel Johnson

Chicken

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 18:00:00 +0000

Chicken / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold

LENT STARTED WEDNESDAY, and for the first time in my life, I am participating. The particulars of my journey aren't important, but in general, I am giving up my obsessions for the next 40 days.

My initial idea was to give up candy. That sounded sensible and like something that I could do. Difficult but not impossible, and good for me. I have a very addictive personality, and my craving for candy was getting a little out of control.

Then I began thinking about Lent, faith, spirituality, the sense of and opportunity for renewal, here in the depths of winter, and I began to see a different path, a more sweeping one that could have more resonance.

This morning, as I contemplated the next 40 days, as I thought about what obsesses me, and how to leave those things behind - or at least leave them alone - for the next days and weeks, I began to see the amount of time and energy they take in my life, and I was sort of stunned. So even in contemplating all of this, even before starting, I have received a gift - of vision and understanding and, honestly, of time.

And so the other side of this is to figure out what to do with the extra time and space in my life. During Lent, one is supposed to give more, and give more of oneself in service, and so I am thinking about that, too.

Are you on a Lenten journey? What are you finding out about yourself, your faith, your spiritual state of being?

***

Coda

"The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help that would never otherwise have occurred. A stream of events issues from the decision, raising unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamt would have come his way."

-William Murray

Muskrat

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 19:00:00 +0000

Muskrat / Oil on black canvas / 5x7/ $68, including shipping

sold

TUESDAY AFTERNOON, the sun shone, absurdly bright after 10 days or more of rain and gray sky. It was a single day's respite, and it was a beauty - nearly 60 degrees, windy enough to dry some of the huge puddles covering neighbors' lawns, and to blow the rich scent of springtime through the tang of the marsh air.

Sunrise came well before 7, and sunset at 5:45. And as the afternoon warmed and lengthened, I heard peepers singing!

Today, it is cold again. Thursday, the rain returns. But Tuesday, for a moment, spring drew a breath, and here on the shore, we all exhaled in joy together.

***

Coda

"We have more strength than will; and when we say things are impossible,

it is often just excuses we make for ourselves."

- Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Two Snow Scenes

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 21:30:00 +0000

Above, Bridge in the Snow l, oil on black canvas /sold.

Below, Bridge in the Snow ll, oil on black canvas, 8x10, $120 including shipping.

Please email me at carrieBjacobson if you would Bridge in Snow II.

IT'S HARD TO PAINT SOFT WITH A KNIFE. Soft works much better with brushes, though even as I type this, I have a new idea for soft snow scenes.

I've done a couple interesting fog pieces - softness is required for fog - by making a painting, letting it dry a little, then putting some gray white over the fog areas, and rubbing it off. Of course, it's pretty scary to do this, especially if you like the initial painting. Now I am wondering if a tactic like this might work, also, for snow. I think I will try a third piece, and post it here, in a bit.

This painting came from a photograph on a plein-air painters group on Facebook. The person who took the picture (I think it's of a scene in Colorado) gave permission for people to paint it, and so I am including it below.

I really love making snow paintings, but typically - for me, at least - they haven't sold. I was surprised and delighted when this one did! Who knows? Maybe the lower one will sell, too.

***

Coda

"I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt;

and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again."

- Lewis Carroll

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking- Glass

February Bouquet

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 11:41:00 +0000

February Bouquet / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68, including shipping
Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to buy this painting!

SOON, THERE WILL BE FLOWERS. There will be gardens, and sunshine, hummingbirds and the smell of lawns being mowed.

Already, here on the Eastern Shore, sunrise is before 7 and sunset after 5:30. Already, I have smelled the scent of spring - unmistakeable, indescribable - on the morning breeze. Already, I've heard the songs of springtime birds.

Garden catalogs have arrived. Daffodil greenery has poked through the soil on the protected east side of the house. The tips of the trees and bushes along the roadways are starting to redden. My mind has turned to thoughts of mulch.

We will make it. Spring will come, bringing warm days and new flowers, lush lawns, dogwoods shimmering in deep woods, laughing gulls calling on the breeze, the marsh grasses changing to that thin yellow green, tender with the season, with new life, with rebirth. With survival.

***

Coda

(love is more thicker than forget)

love is more thicker than forget

more thinner than recall

more seldom than a wave is wet

more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly

and less it shall unbe

than all the sea which only

is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win

less never than alive

less bigger than the least begin

less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly

and more it cannot die

than all the sky which only

is higher than the sky

- e.e. cummings

Gotta Love a Snail

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 18:11:00 +0000

Gotta Love a Snail / Oil on black canvas / 5x5 / $68 including shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like this little guy

A SNAIL MUCH LIKE THIS ONE was the very first painting to sell in the Love series on the Oil & Water Facebook page my friend Susan McGuire and I started recently. (https://www.facebook.com/Oil-Water-104885681569296).

Not only did it sell about a minute after I posted it, but directly afterwards, several other people contacted me, wanting it - so I made more.

Here is the final snail Love piece. All my Love paintings had hearts hidden in them (or not so hidden). This one won't be dry in time for a Valentine's Day delivery, but love late is still love, isn't it?

It always interests me, and often surprises me, when people clamor for certain paintings. Crab paintings took off in somewhat the same way, and the little mountaintop pieces I make up from my imagination, and the leftover paint on my palette, seem to always find a home.

***

Coda

Flirtation

After all, there's no need

to say anything

at first. An orange, peeled

and quartered, flares

like a tulip on a wedgewood plate

Anything can happen.

Outside the sun

has rolled up her rugs

and night strewn salt

across the sky. My heart

is humming a tune

I haven't heard in years!

Quiet's cool flesh --

let's sniff and eat it.

There are ways

to make of the moment

a topiary

so the pleasure's in

walking through.

- Rita Dove

Nuthatch, Perched

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 16:00:00 +0000

Nuthatch, Perched / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to have this cutie!

IN THIS LIFE ALONE, and with the covid, and with the terrible memory I've always had, I've had to find ways to remember to do things.

A calendar, of course, is a great start, but doesn't work unless I first remember to write stuff down on it, and then remember to look at it.

I've come to terms with my Alexa device, and use her more and more often to remind me about things - including feeding the dogs. Peter always fed the dogs, and many times after he died, I couldn't remember if I had or hadn't. You'd think they would let me know, but dogs are all about the food. A second dinner would not be a problem for them. Any time during the course of the day, if I rattle their food bowls, they are ready and barking.

I've learned to count the dogs out loud, not only when they come in, but also when I give them their we-came-in-the-house cookies. Yes, several times, I left one or two of them outside for longer than I should have. Same with leaving the studio. Poor Woody was locked in there for hours on several occasions. Luckily, he is pretty much blind and pretty much deaf, and sleeps pretty much 23 hours a day, so he didn't know - but I was in a panic.

I have learned that when paintings sell, I should move them from one side of the studio to the other. From the drying wall to the sold wall. More than once, I've sold a painting twice, and have had to make amends.

Lately, I've developed a few tricks to keep myself more or less civilized. I leave the bathroom light on in the morning to remind myself to brush my teeth.

I load my pockets with gloves and fresh tissues when I come IN from walking the dogs, since I can't seem to remember to make sure I have those things when I go out to walk them.

But still, I lose things and forget. Months ago, I put my favorite coffee cup somewhere, and have never found it. Last week, I took out a can of potatoes (did you know they made such a thing? I didn't, but got a few cans a while ago for a recipe that required them. They did the job, but are really not very good, so I've been feeding them to Woody, who needs fiber in his diet.) I put that can of potatoes down somewhere and have yet to find it.

What tricks have you all learned during this covid year, to keep yourselves from slipping off the edge?

***

Coda

I Go Down to the Shore

I go down to the shore in the morning

and depending on the hour the waves

are rolling in or moving out,

and I say, oh, I am miserable,

what shall--

what should I do? And the sea says

in its lovely voice:

Excuse me, I have work to do.

- Mary Oliver

Coffee Jones

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 11:39:00 +0000

Coffee Jones / Oil on black canvas / 4x12 / special $68 including shipping!

sold!

SUSAN MCGUIRE AND I recently started a page on Facebook called Oil & Water (https://www.facebook.com/Oil-Water-104885681569296). She paints in all media, but primarily watercolor. And I paint nearly exclusively in oils.

The page is mainly for projects we do together, to challenge ourselves and each other, to mark a season or an occasion - or just for fun. We agreed that everything on the page will sell for $68, including shipping.

For Valentine's Day, we did a Love project. My plan was to hide a heart in each painting, and I had a good time coming up with the ideas. This is one I've wanted to do for a while. I always enjoy watching the cream make its way through iced coffee - the abstract designs intrigue me, and I enjoy the feeling that twisting cream gives me of floating, of movement, of space and time. And I am a little bit of a coffee freak.

Usually my 4x12s are more expensive, but I'd run out of 5x7 canvases, so there are a couple on the page that are less expensive than they might be otherwise, and this is one of them.

You can never really count on the post office, I know, but if you let me know today that you want this painting, it might get to you in time to be an on-time Valentine's Day gift. No guarantees! (And if your valentine really loves you, he or she won't mind if it doesn't reach you quite on time...)

***

Coda

Valentine

simplicity

say sleep

shall we

shower

have an apple

you are

as I need

water

shall I move?

do you dream?

shallow snow

flesh

melt this

- Tom Pickard

Sunset Through the Trees

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 19:30:00 +0000

Sunset Through the Trees / Oil on black canvas/ 8x10/ $120 including shipping

sold

I AM HEALING. I see it nearly every day, sometimes in big steps, sometimes small. And while I am glad for this - because, who wouldn't be? - there is part of me that feels a bit of sorrow about it. Does this make sense? In grieving Peter, in mourning him, I am close to him. Respectful of the life he led, the life we led together. I am with him.

In healing, I am moving away. I am taking steps on my own. I am learning to live without him. I know this is necessary, and it is what I want, but in a way, I rue my burgeoning independence, my quickening heart, the delight I feel in new adventures, new ideas, new friends.

I will continue to heal, I know, and to grow and prosper, and find my way in this world without him. I'll probably never be entirely without sadness, and that is OK with me. That little bit of sadness is as much a link as the memories of joy, of love, and the sharing of our lives.

***

Coda

You, Therefore

For Robert Philen

You are like me, you will die too, but not today:

you, incommensurate, therefore the hours shine:

if I say to you “To you I say,” you have not been

set to music, or broadcast live on the ghost

radio, may never be an oil painting or

Old Master’s charcoal sketch: you are

a concordance of person, number, voice,

and place, strawberries spread through your name

as if it were budding shrubs, how you remind me

of some spring, the waters as cool and clear

(late rain clings to your leaves, shaken by light wind),

which is where you occur in grassy moonlight:

and you are a lily, an aster, white trillium

or viburnum, by all rights mine, white star

in the meadow sky, the snow still arriving

from its earthwards journeys, here where there is

no snow (I dreamed the snow was you,

when there was snow), you are my right,

have come to be my night (your body takes on

the dimensions of sleep, the shape of sleep

becomes you): and you fall from the sky

with several flowers, words spill from your mouth

in waves, your lips taste like the sea, salt-sweet (trees

and seas have flown away, I call it

loving you): home is nowhere, therefore you,

a kind of dwell and welcome, song after all,

and free of any eden we can name

- Reginald Shepherd

Sunset Through the Pines

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 18:30:00 +0000

Sunset Through the Pines / Oil on black canvas / 18x24 / $700, including shipping

sold

BACK IN THE FALL, Doc and I went to dog school. Really, not only went, but more importantly, graduated from dog school (and below is the photo that proves it!).

Dog school was put on by Eastern Shore Dog, which is basically Beth Ann Sabo and Anna Malik, and if you're here on the Shore, you can find Eastern Shore Dog on Facebook, or at its website here.

Doc and I learned a lot in dog school, and it helped my scared and snappish fellow begin to learn to co-exist with other dogs and people. He also learned to walk nicely (most of the time) on a leash, to come when I call him (most of the time), to sit and stay, and - most recently (post graduate work!) to lie down.

All of that is great, but dog school took place on Mondays at 5:30 p.m., at the Barrier Islands Center, about 30 minutes from here. It was October and November, the days were short and cold, and each week, I had to fight my entropy, to get Doc and myself up and out. One of the things that motivated me was a good chance to see the sunset.

That's where this painting came from, a beautiful sunset through the trees, on the way to dog school.

***

The Real Dr. Cooper

YES, FOR WHATEVER nutty reason I had at the time, I named Doc after my dad. I want to report today that Dad is back home - yay! - and sounded happy and hopeful when I talked with him this weekend.

Turns out his swallowing problem was a side effect of AFIB medication he was on. I share this in case you or a loved one ever encounters the same issue. We are all grateful and relieved that Dad made it through this crisis, and is doing so very well. Thank you for your prayers and good wishes.

***

Coda

Of the Dark Doves

For Claudio Guillen

In the branches of the laurel tree

I saw two dark doves

One was the sun

and one the moon

Little neighbors I said

where is my grave --

In my tail said the sun

On my throat said the moon

And I who was walking

with the land around my waist

saw two snow eagles

and a naked girl

One was the other

and the girl was none

Little eagles I said

where is my grave --

In my tail said the sun

On my throat said the moon

In the branches of the laurel tree

I saw two naked doves

One was the other

and both were none

- Frederico Garcia Lorca

Translated by Sarah Arvio

Magpie on a Curved Branch

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Mon, 25 Jan 2021 19:00:00 +0000

Magpie on a Curved Branch / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold

I FIRST ENCOUNTERED MAGPIES when Peter and I moved to Idaho. They're such amusing birds! They're large - or at least the ones we had in Boise were - bigger than crows. They look quite formal, their coloring always making me think of tuxedos. The black of their feathers is a deep, deep blue-black, flashing turquoise and even a little green in the right light.

And they're very smart - according to Wikipedia, one of the few non-mammal species able to recognize themselves in a mirror. Heck, some days, I can't even do that.

They used to strut around the yard, squawking and carrying on, and they knew our schedules, knew the dogs, knew when we would fill the feeders and take out the trash. It was fun to remember how we laughed at and about them.

***

Coda

Was It Necessary to Do It?

I tell you that ant is very alive!

Look at how he fusses at being stepped on.

- Mary Oliver

Hawk

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 19:00:00 +0000

Hawk / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold

MY FRIEND SUSAN MCGUIRE and I are have launched a painting-project page on Facebook. Susan is a wonderful painter, who uses all media but mostly, these days at least, watercolors. So our page is called Oil & Water, and you can find it on Facebook. Everything on the page, her work and mine, is $68 including shipping - and for you bird-painting fans, there are some bird paintings there that I haven't posted here yet. Click here to go to Oil & Water on Facebook!

Some of the bird paintings on the new page come from a challenge I gave myself, early in January - to paint 10 birds in a day. I did it - but just by the skin of my teeth (and that is an odd phrase, if you stop to think about it!)

You artists might consider making some nearly unattainable challenge to yourselves, especially if you are feeling dull or blocked. I had been painting a lot, in November and December - all commissions. I love commissions, but a steady stream of them - painting other people's ideas, other people's desires - can blunt my own ideas, and somehow shorten my sense of direction and flow. For me, at least, there's nothing like a huge challenge to kick out the jams.

And it needn't be a challenge of numbers, of quantity. I've challenged myself to use odd colors, minimal colors, only yellows, only large knives, only small knives, only straight strokes, only curving strokes, only 30 minutes, only 60 minutes.

Once I tried to make a painting with strokes that went in a huge spiral out from a spot that was off-center. My aim was to stick to the pattern, while putting the colors, light, shadow in the right places. It didn't work, but continues to interest me as an idea. I think it involves too much planning for me, and feels too much like math. One of you might like to try it. Please send me the photo if you do!

***

Coda

An Old Story

Sleep comes its little while. Then I wake

in the valley of midnight or three a.m.

to the first fragrance of spring

which is coming, all by itself, no matter what.

My heart says, what you thought you have you do not have.

My body says, will this pounding ever stop?

My heart says: there, there, be a good student.

My body says: let me up and out, I want to fondle

those soft white flowers, open in the night.

- Mary Oliver

Bald Eagle

noreply@blogger.com (carrie jacobson) — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 18:30:00 +0000

Eagle / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you would like to own this painting

SOMETIMES, I HEAR an eagle call, here in Wachapreague. They are around - I've seen them flying over the yard several times, and, many times, in the fields nearby.

One Sunday morning, I watched one devour a deer that had been killed on the Wachapreague Road. He stayed there for longer than I could, and he was apparently unafraid of me - or at least, willing to tamp down his fear in the face of such bounty.

The bald eagle was chosen as the emblem of America on June 20, 1782, because of his strength and good looks, and because it existed nowhere but on this continent.

Benjamin Franklin derided the selection, calling the bald eagle a bird of "bad moral character." The bald eagle, Franklin wrote, "does not get his living honestly, you may see him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-hawk, and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes it from him..."

Franklin goes on (you can read more here) and suggests that the turkey would be a better choice.

Lazy carrion-eaters though they may be, their majesty always captures my heart.

***

Coda

"A year from now, you will wish you had started today."

- Karen Lamb