30 x 40" on canvas.
I tried adding a woman and pony, but I covered it up. I find with abstract pieces it is always tempting to put something recognizable in it-like a bird or tree, and sometimes i do, only to cover it. It's almost like it takes courage not to add a bird or animal, I don't know how else to say that.
UPDATE: We have raised just over $5,000 of our $20000 goal so we are 1/4 of the way there! Thank you!
This is an illustrated story I did last fall. It originally was only available to Patreon members but I shuttered Patreon and now anyone can read it, for free but if you like it feel free to share a tip here The story takes place in present time, with Earnest the pig meeting an old abandoned bucket, named Bucket, who was freed from a debris pile by a Nor'easter. The two become friends and eventually are joined by Mrs. Studley, a rat with a very unique past. The story meshes historical facts form former owners of our farm, with Earnest and Bucket's story.
Harry and I made it to The In My Head Vacation To The House By The Sea and with today's high heat, Harry sat out in his little boat. I sat on the shore under a canopy and slept with my toes in the water that came to shore. That's about all we did but it was what we wanted to do.
Acrylic on watercolor paper, 12x12" protective varnish, signed on back.
20" canvas, ready to hang, protective varnish. Signed on back.Now on shop.
The price was $150, now $50 each plus shipping.
NOTE this price is for the COVER ONLY - you have to buy your own 20" pillow, but I can share my online source for that if needed.
The Ukraine War...or should I say The Putin War Against Ukraine continues and it is frustrating and sad to watch. How much they can take I can't imagine. I sit in my privileged American viewing spot, horrified by what I see, but I am free to walk away, put up a bubble, to protect myself.
The dam collapse just sent me spiralling -all the horrible stories of animals and humans dying and in despair. The zoo that had survived the war so far...but now wiped out. The suffering that must have occurred.
I have gotten better at not 'taking on' all of the woes of those suffering, but it usually strikes me when I see vivid images, and then I have to stop and help myself be protected from it.
By not looking I feel I'm letting those people and animals down. By looking it hurts. The conflict of life on earth as an empath and human-what is helpful? Being outraged on social media? Doing a paintings? I did this painting, working intently on it, feeling it, yesterday. I guess it is an homage to the dead and dying. I had seen a pot bellied pig in a dog house, on top of a lot of the flooded area. He was safe for the photo, but I let myself go there, thinking of my pigs if they had been there. The suffering of so many.
I guess the best we can do is support Ukraine with money and weapons...and by calling out current elected officials who feel it is not in our best interest to help them, the head of the House for one. It is not in the world's or America's best interest to vote in any lawmaker that thinks Putin is a 'strong leader' and should be negotiated with. That is misguided and those people have ulterior motives. Putin is evil pure and simple.
The conflict of wanting to love all humans. I can not love Putin. The challenge of accepting that all humans have some light in them-not if they are truly evil. Putin is evil. He has no light. I have come to that conclusion after being on earth this long. Some humans are evil beyond rehabbing them.
So...I painted this. Available at the shop. And if you get a kick out of mailing graham crackers to an old pig or pirate turkey, you can visit the Apifera Wish List.
This piece was inspired by events Apifera when an eagle flew into take one of our ducks. I did this piece back in about 2015, out West, and for some reason hung onto it. Sometimes you hold onto a piece until you are ready to let go, sometimes you let go the minute you finish them. When I look at this piece, I realize the title has a couple of meanings. While an eagle can intrude my space and take an animal, there are worse intruders in one's life. My face half covered keeps out the intruders- I perceive are all around me, or online, or lurking behind anonymous names. Sometimes they are strangers and sometimes you know them. I've been talking to more and more people lately that are feeling this sense of intrusion, and not wanting to be bothered by other people. So I thought it was time someone else take this piece home if it resonates. And take note, the nest of eggs holding new life sits in the hut, unscathed.
12" acrylic, protective varnish, on kiln dried pine board, ready to hang. Signed on back.
I was sitting on the teak bench on the garden the other day, a beautiful spring Maine day without flies [yet]. The teak benches, there are two, were owned by my parents back in Minnesota and sat in their rose garden for years. I often had coffee with my mother every day there, as I was a freelancer and made my own hours. At the time, I had one friend who often told me I needed to go see other people and quit doing a mother visit everyday as I would never meet anyone [I was about 40 at the time and very single, two years later I'd meet Martyn]. I told her I liked being with my mom, and I'm so glad I had all those morning coffees with her.
Years later, my parents moved into a place where they no longer could use the teak benches and they gave them to me and Martyn out at the old farm. They jokingly said they wanted us to name the benches "Bob" and "Kelly", in their honor. We did. None of us could tell Bob the bench apart from Kelly the bench but it didn't matter.
So I'm sitting in the garden, as I said, on one of the benches, and I was really wishing my mom was sitting there with me, so we could talk...talk about stuff I wouldn't talk to anyone else about. I thought of all our chats on those benches, some with me in tears over some moron I was smitten with, some debating who would win the election, some just sitting, watching birds. As I thought of all those things, I found that I was slightly bent forward, with my forearms on my thighs–this was a position my mother often would sit in on those benches. I smiled...I knew it was her.
"I still miss you," I said. "But thanks."
So when doves have come to me in the past 9 years since her death …nine times out of ten it is her. The dove returned that nested here last year and I was thinking of that dove as I painted, I was honored she returned tot he same nesting spot, but I think I was really thinking of my mother.
I am not sure if this canvas will go to Sundance or not. If you are interested in it, please contact me.
Then the power went out and it made my day feel upside down, but it came back on two hours later. Note to self: you have to get confidant turning the generator on.
I just feel sort of upside down today, unable to make simple decisions, like what should we have for dinner on my bday. Or what should I do today. I guess its the weight of Ukraine on my mind and heart. I don't know. I did this painting this past week, in honor of the little child that died. I wrote about it back then when she died she was in her pajama bottoms that had little unicorns on them, she and her parents were trying to get food. She died in ambulance, with her parents bloodied and weeping. It was all just so sad, and unnecessary, and unfair. Fuck Putin.
The painting honors the little girl, and I called it "In heaven the unicorn on her pajamas came to life and her belly button grew a sunflower".
Maybe I'll drive to the ocean and looked out at her. I don't know.
My much younger and sweet farrier says I don't look older than 50. I think I finally look my age. I think I looked younger than many for some time, probably because I don't smoke and I take care of my skin. But in the last year, I see photos and what I see in the mirror, I think it looks 64. It feels like 64 is closer to the next decade than the last. That's sobering. I have a lot to get done.
Happy birthday to me. I don't have to worry about being killed by bullets today. I just wish I could put an end to the madness.
By the way, I treated myself to a beautiful robin egg blue linen scarf from a small company in Lithuania called Sand Snow.
It's wrong. I wonder sometimes if there is karma. I always believe the universal laws, invisible to us humans, always work it out and makes evil doers and crooks and liars pay, somehow. It often takes more time than we would wish. But you look at the evil that Putin has been doing for so long [please research this on your own if you don't know his career of atrocities], and you wonder why the universe hasn't stepped in.
So I'm devastated about the carnage, the plain unfairness of what Russia is doing, and gobsmacked by people in the political world in the USA who ally themselves with this deranged dictator.
The images of the six year old girl, bloodied, wounded from gunfire or explosives while trying to get food with her young parents, that pushed me over an edge. But I had to look, and I did not glance, I absorbed it at length, caressing each of their faces, crying with them, praying for them. She was in her pajama bottoms, that had unicorns on them. She was trying to get food.
I feel we must not look away. We in our privileged places get to take breaks from the on the ground horror, but we must not look away. I have been studying the various links to how to help the people there, and eventually will pick one. I hope you will too if you are able. The bravery of these people, old and young, taking up arms. Can you imagine this? Can you imagine if Russia invaded Maine at the border of Canada, headed for Augusta, an hour away? Can you imagine being told to take up arms, make bombs and stand your ground? Would you do it? I asked someone the other day, all the people driving around with upside down flags, Confederate flags, or the people who brazenly stormed and destroyed the sanctity of the Capital, would they defend their state/country if this happened? Or would they join forces with evil, or become their own state and abandon what they had seen as corrupt government? I look around and I am not so sure that many Americans would be as brave in this situation. We have the privileged of not being on the border of such evil.
A friend sent me a quote from someone, I've since misplaced it. But it spoke about what to do with angst, anger or fear in such extreme times as this war is presenting. The gist of it was to not bury the feelings in your body, but to bring it out through art, poems, songs, creative expression, talking, shouting...One does not always have to go online with puppy dog photos and cats in hats. Sometimes even us happy people must shout through art. I noticed I lost a smattering of 'followers' on IG, most of whom I don't know, and i don't care. But there are people who just don't want to see it or hear it. They want the farm lady to just stick to the cute dog videos or magical goose pictures. I don't care about that, just as I would never do a painting 'that looks good with my living room furniture'.
I pray for Ukraine. But they need much more than prayers. I don't have the answers, and at first I felt we were not giving enough. The more I hear historians and military people I respect speak, I understand the dilemma we and other countries are in. Putin knew this. But he and his reptilian face [Madeline Albright's op ed was so insightful] are weakened by what he's done.
But I much like it. It pleases me.
