Blog

    The end of another summer is right around bend; and with it a hope to return to the studio in a focused fashion, instead of the diffused and often scattered energy of the last few months. Not to mention the humidity, house and garden projects and more plane trips than I want to think about.

      Some things are settling down- I have a teaching schedule to mark on the calendar to give my weeks rhythm (Monday is the new Sunday!) and with that a way to find my feet.  The black and white and grey show (Grisaille: Songs on the Black and White Keys) that James Warwick Jones so kindly allowed me to co-curate at the Charles Taylor is up and looking pretty good, (if I do say so myself), I've got an idea for a silverpoint and after many false starts a decent reference to proceed with and supports all ready to go, a couple of commisssions have been completed and are just awaiting varnish and frames before delivery, and for once I actually have a wee little painting ready to go for the Small Works show this fall.  Still have to come up with an entry for the Tidewater Community College Faculty Show, and there are a couple of other things on the horizon but it all seems to be coming together, even if in fits and starts.

    In the meantime, I do have figs...

    So- as the year has gone on, and the Great Studio Shuffle continues I have learned a few things.  For starters, working in public is difficult, and I'm not sure yet whether the experiment in doing so is helpful to my growth as an individual artist.  I'm pretty sure that it's beneficial to the arts as a whole, but that collective benefit doesn't always translate to the individual.   I'm continuing to work at home as well, despite the Great Kitchen Shake-Out in addition to the usual domestic disruptions and that might prove to be my best bet in the long run.  In any case, it's not been the most productive summer to date, but here are a couple of the pieces that have left, or are slated to leave the easel shortly:  a wee little painting of the island at the lake where my husband's family lives, First Island  and a portrait that's coming along well, a good blue suit: