exhibit

I have new work based on travels to the Skagit Valley area of Washington State in an exhibit at the Hill Center Galleries in DC:

 

"Gather In"

Hill Center Galleries in Hill Center at Old Naval Hospital

May 5- June 17th

Opening Reception: May 17th 6-8 pm

921 Pennsylvania Avenue SE

Washington, DC 20003

"Gather In" 30x30 oil

thoughts

Here is a somewhat somber poem for a beautiful spring day:

O let me not die in the cold gray of winter
And let me not die in the merciless heat of summer
And let me not die in the giddy, heedless spring
But let me die in fall with an honor guard of color

Farm Evening 12x12

 

a month later

My plan was to post again a month later on the day of my quote from 2015- missed it by a day.  Clearly the flowers are on a different schedule this year!  The flowers on my lilac bush have bloomed and are starting to wither.  Curiously we are seeing a lot of butterflies already. 

Here is some new work- some pastels in a larger size than I usually do. They are from a trip a couple years ago to St. George Bermuda. 

now

In March spring is still tentative and not entirely trustworthy, but every week now clearly demarcates the passage of time.  Right now is very specific and different from five days ago.   I just found an entry in my journal dated April 15, 2015,  “The crocus flowers have melted away, those flowers that were such a surprise a month ago, coming so hard on the heels of snow.  The daffodils are starting to wither as we come into the hour for tulips, cups of sheer color.  If there is an exact point of red on the color spectrum it lives in a tulip.  Flurries of whitish pink cherry blossoms fly off trees, giving ground to the green leaves.  Lilac flowers wait in the wings now, dusty dark purple nubs.  Yesterday it rained all day.  A slender wet slug felt its way across the window screen.  Bird song coming through the open window is inventive and plentiful now.”

a poem and two paintings

Here is a little poem for a today:

           The sudden heavy rain-

          “its like a waterfall now”

          she said looking out

          through the plate glass windows

          of the coffee shop.

 I've always been intrigued with the challenge of painting a mountain in a small two dimensional space that does more than just create a realistic illusion.  I don't know how many times I have taken photos of mountains only to be disappointed with the little 4x6 glossy print in my hand.  It always fails to convey their massive presence.  So here are two more attempts.  The first is from our trip to the Isle of Skye in Scotland a year ago, and the second is from Skagit Valley, Washington State where once a year fields of tulips blaze color below snow capped mountains.  

Mountains of the Mind 2 22x28

 

Mountains of the Mind 3 22x28

new pastels

Tulip vendor in Skagit Valley, WA

house with a view in St. George, Bermuda

St. George, Bermuda

new work

"Mountains of the Mind" 30x30 oil

poem

Wallpaper

I wake mid

night, and walking back

from the bathroom

I pass a window, a charging phone.

In places I can’t see

for the dark, and too sleepy

to wait on perception,

a lightly patterned image

films my eyes

laid in place

over the unknown

Like the stories we tell

rehearsed memories of birthdays

and Christmas

a screen, paper thin to cover

forgotten days and words.

digging out

 It was warm enough today after shoveling to sit and sketch while my husband finished the job! 

juncos in the snow

oceanview

I finished this painting a couple weeks ago.  The inspiration came from a trip two years ago to St. George, Bermuda. We walked along a little road through a neighborhood where residents lived on the edge of a sprawling abandoned golf course.  The road followed the ridge of the island with views here and there of the sea both to the North and the South.  The sun was getting low and these houses with views of the ocean were catching the last light. 

museum sketches

We went to Washington DC Jan 1st.  It's the best day of the year to go, the museums are open and there are no crowds or traffic on the way there.  Our first stop was the wildlife photography show at the Natural History Museum.  Then the Portrait Gallery.  Of course I had to do a little sketching!

Portrait Gallery

 

Rodin

There is a great exhibit at the Virginia Fine Arts Museum in Richmond of Rodin’s work.  It's all about the thumb print on the clay, the soft give when pressed.  Like Michaelangelo’s genius but softer, a malleable exquisite modeling of the human form.  Every muscle is correct, proportions and weighting are perfect.  Right in a way you can feel.  The exhibit walked us through his work and his methods and ended with three of the Burghers of Calais, the city leaders who offered themselves as sacrifices to save the town.  Each person went resolute to their expected death but the feelings of fear, apprehension, determination powered through each uniquely.  They loomed above us and we gaze up at their purposed, noble faces in awe as intended. 

Here are some sketches from my visit:

new work

I've been doing some little paintings for the holidays:

these days

We have had some really beautiful days here in Fredericksburg.  For about a week at the end of October there were these trees that were like candles ablaze with light that fell all over the sidewalk and lawns.  Here is a little poem for you:

Remember finding four leaf clover

along the driveway?

Bent down, fingering through the green

round leaves.

Those were days of sitting while

you played in the sandbox

and chased fireflies in the semi-dark. 

I want to sift through and lift them out

to comb the half forgotten,

flattened out picture show

tangled maze of memory.

Pull them out and dust them off

the miracles.

fragments

Painting

Sometimes I feel like each canvas

is a piece of the puzzle.

And if I could paint enough

it would all make sense.

Where the Artist paints in the perfect medium

completeness in motion,

I paint in finite, stop and go

with brief brushes of transcendence

as momentary as a leaf fall in November.  

Belmont

Gari Melchers was an impressionist artist living in Stafford, Virginia.  He had several outbuildings constructed around his grounds that are very picturesque.  Perfect for painting pictures of!  The main house and gardens are beautifully maintained- it's a great place to go sketching! 

Fredericksburg, Virginia

 Living Here

The Muleshoe Salient is still imprinted on the land in the fields and woods

of Spotslyvania Courthouse.  The mounds of dirt they dug

in haste for cover

are low now and covered with moss, twigs,

grasses nibbled on by the deer and rabbits.

Longstreet Drive, Jackson Street, Ewell Lane,

new roads with token names, a nod to what?  Restless dreams

and flags. 

Layer after layer of fall leaves laid in now cover the dead.

Curried golf courses and battlefields mowed every fall. 

Chancellorsville, First Day, preserved.

The scrub woods that was the horror

of Wilderness has grown up.

It veils new subdivisions hidden back in the woods. 

Stories float among us of misty dawn ghost soldiers in the road

I half believe them.

In the fall the shadows get longer,

the sky bluer.   Visitors come here to remember a few days in May.

Like the deer and moss and new trees,

living on mostly we forget. 

photo by Susan Krieg

small poem

       Grinding exactitudes
       parsing ever finer
       flowering outward with smaller
       and smaller branches
       until meaning
       is lost.

pastel sketch for the next painting

 

 

 

 

 

sketching on Washington Avenue in Fredericksburg, VA

poem

Driving the highway home

at night from Washington, DC

to Fredericksburg,

the heavy traffic snakes in the dark

along on unseen paths.

Northbound, a diamond necklace of headlights,

and southbound poured out like rubies

on a blanket of black velvet.

Day time around town

I see the cars like pooh sticks

flowing under the overpasses. 

In my bedroom

when its really quiet,

two am, awake,

staring at the clock I can hear it,

trucks grinding, the low constant hum,

a river with insomnia.