Whiteout (Deer) - SOLD

Whiteout (Deer)

8" x 8"

Acrylic on canvas

SOLD

Here's another of these smaller paintings that uses Golden's interference colors.  

Falling Snow

Falling Snow

acrylic on canvas

24" x 24" x 1.5"

Available for purchase from Freshwater Studio & Gallery, Dillon, MT

I've been in a wintry mood lately - that is to say, I've been aching for peaceful, snowy days that make the world a lot quieter and hot chocolate all the more delicious.

Since it's mostly just a rainy mess out here, I found a lot of my atmospheric inspiration from reading a poem by Joanna Klink called "Porch In Snow." It helped to put me in the right mindset for this painting. Originally featured in Klink's amazing book of poetry called Circadian, I first came upon "Porch In Snow" in an absolutely outstanding anthology called Montana Women Writers: A Geography of the Heart (seriously...this is an amazing book. I highly recommend it). Klink is a professor of graduate creative writing at the University of Montana-Missoula.

I just want to share a few lines here to give you an idea of how lovely it is...but you should read the full version via Google Books' preview of Montana Women Writers here. I hate to excerpt from poetry, since the poetry gets so mangled as a result...it's especially hard to share a brief excerpt of Klink's poetry, since every line is so darn good.

"There you are, snow filling the air,

in the midst of silence [...]

Winter, there is no prayer but this,

to hold fast in the time of few choices.

An animal moves through the backyards, its eyes

precise and lit, the premise of everything I believe"

-Joanna Klink, excerpted from "Porch In Snow", from Circadian (Penguin: 2007)

Isn't that just stunning? I hope you'll check out Klink's work and find as much inspiration in her poetry as I have.

Allies for a Season

(click to enlarge photos)

Allies for a Season
acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas
24" x 36" x 1.5"
Available for purchase at Carnation Corners, Carnation, WA

I came down with a head cold this week and fell behind on my painting. Nonetheless, I managed to produce this wintry painting, which definitely fit my under-the-weather mood. :)

The pigments have been mixed with incandescent pearl paint, and I laid the colors on layer by layer. A soft purple/magenta shows through the blue layers, but this unfortunately doesn't show up so well in the photographs.

The snow whispers about me,And my wooden clogsLeave holes behind me in the snow.But no one will pass this waySeeking my footsteps,And when the temple bell rings againThey will be covered and gone. -Amy Lowell, "Falling Snow"

Running With Ancestors

Running With Ancestors

acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas

14" x 18"

Available at Proctor Art Gallery, Tacoma, WA

(contact)

This has been sitting in my studio for over a month, waiting to be photographed. I used the same fluffy molding paste with this painting as I did with the buffalo.

David felt that the white horse looked like a ghost and came up with the name for this one.

When we are praising Plato, it seems we are praising quotations from Solon and Sophron and Philolaus. Be it so. Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors. And this grasping inventor puts all nations under contribution.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Representative Men

Frozen Field

Frozen Field

18"x24"

acrylic on canvas

$170 + $28 shipping (contact)

I hope that everyone has been having a great holiday season. I can't believe it's 2010 already...has anybody officially declared what we will call this decade? (i.e., the 10s? The 20-10s?)

David and I went shopping for Christmas records a few weeks ago, and although I was sad to find no fun 45s, we did come across a Bing Crosby LP, as well as a pretty amazing nugget: John Denver's Rocky Mountain Christmas, featuring a particularly curious track entitled "Please, Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas)." It doesn't quite fit in with "Silver Bells," and I'm not quite sure what inspired John to add this track to a list of otherwise soothing Christmas/wintry melodies. It's one of those songs that has strikingly depressing lyrics paired with an upbeat melody.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "The Snow-Storm"

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