February 2024

 Hello and Happy New Year! 

I know it's half-way through February, but I haven't been here at the blog so far this year, so this is my first chance to say that I hope your new year is going well. Believe it or not, I am enjoying winter, because it hasn't been bad where we are, and because I don't have to get up at 5am to go to work in bad winter weather anymore! It's easier to like winter when you are able to stay inside with the fireplace going while it snows, and also know that it's not up to you to shovel it!

I may not have been writing my blog as regularly as I would like, but I have been painting regularly - pretty much every day that I don't have some kind of appointment. At my age, those are mostly doctor or healthcare related appointments! But I don't have that many of those, so the bottom line is that I paint almost every day.

It's kind of amazing to me that at 83 and with my Parkinson's, I still feel like I am growing and expanding as an artist. Fortunately, the Parkinson's does not bother me that much when I'm painting. In fact, it's the one time when it almost seems to disappear! The people researching it should look into that...

Here's a short clip of me painting today. You can see I have no tremor or shaking at all in this video. But it is tiring to paint with the brush, as I have to concentrate so hard to control my movement. So I use palette knife more often than the brush nowadays. I also have to sit to paint now - that's been the case for a couple of years already. You might remember when Melissa put together that chair for me during the pandemic.

Melissa says she thinks I'm doing some of my best work ever, and I have to agree. I'm not sure it's a case of painting "better," just differently, with different results that I very much like.  As I mentioned, I use palette knife most of the time now, because those are easier to hold and control. They result in a whole different effect though. I've been trying new techniques, which are evident in the new works I'm showing you below. It mostly has to do with texture and the way I'm blending colors.

Anyway, how anyone feels about my current work is in the eye of the beholder, so you are the beholders and you can decide for yourselves! 

I'm thinking of putting the painting on the bottom right in the first photo in the next Falmouth Art Center show, which has the theme of Blink. The idea is that the artistic creation - painting, photograph, sculpture or whatever it is, will depict something that will be fleeting - gone in the blink of an eye. The painting is called Cascading Moonlight, and it captures a moment when the light is just such that it looks like the moon is dripping, and a moment later, you know the light will change and that will be gone.

At the end of this post is another photo like the first, but it shows a note taped to the wall. The note is there to remind me that I am not supposed to get up and walk around when Melissa is not home. This is known as "unauthorized travel."  I am under strict orders to stay put because if I get up and walk around, there's a good chance I will lose my balance and fall. Sometimes I forget that I have mobility issues - when you've gone your whole life without them, that can happen! So the notes are there to remind me ...

Here's a sample of my latest work. As always, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read and look.

I did the mountain scene last fall but the two smaller ones in the first photo are new. I like showing them on the wall so you can get a sense of their size. The two square ones are 12" by 12".

This one is 18" by 18" 

Close-ups

Check out the note taped to the wall below the paintings. Orders from The Management.😏

It's December Already!

 Melissa reminded me that I haven't put up a post since October, so I figured I better get on that since I have actually been painting quite a lot! And that's even with having our first getaway since moving back to New England - we spent four days in central Massachusetts for Thanksgiving with Melissa's family. It's our first Thanksgiving with them in many years, and it was wonderful to see everyone again. Here's the evidence that I was there:

Meanwhile, on the painting front...

I'm happy to say that I've had work in three shows recently - two at the Falmouth Art Center and one at the Cape Cod Museum of Art. The next one I plan to enter is at FAC, and it has the theme Brrr. The idea is to capture the feeling of winter light (or darkness) and that icy feeling of January  coooooooooooollllllddddd...

So, I've worked on a number of pieces that could fit the theme, but I think this one is my choice. Winter sunlight creates reflections and shadows among the trees and I've tried to capture that through the use of color in a sort of playful and exaggerated fashion here. I love the idea of using unexpected color as a proxy for light and shadow on the bare trees of winter and coupling that with the pure white of untouched snow. This one is 18" by 24" on gallery-wrapped canvas.

Winter Forest Reflections 

Here are some of the other pieces I worked on for the Brrr theme. The first one is in a similar vein to the one above, and then I switched to an almost-all-white scene for a complete contrast. These two are smaller at 8" x 16".

Winter Beauty

Aspens in Winter

Then, in a whole different vein, I worked on this larger piece, depicting snow on a mountain. I really love this painting and think it fits the Brrr theme well too. It's 15" by 30" by 1.5" gallery-wrapped canvas.

Snow on the Mountain

And finally, my most recent piece a REALLY big one at 36" by 36" by 1.5" gallery-wrapped canvas. 

My first iteration was in mostly gray and brown tones, and there was a pathway going into the woods. But I decided it was too dull and that the path was distracting. So I painted over it and ended up with this very nuanced winter woods scene. I kept the trees from the first painting, but overlaid them with a wash of white so that you end up with just a glimpse of the woods - almost as though looking through a fog. 

I like the overall effect. This could be a contender for Brrr too, but I think I'll stick with my choice above, as these others can go into future shows too.

Into the Woods

October 2023 - Change is Good

Hello! I've been painting mostly to Native American flute music by artists like Carlos Nakai and Jesse Kalu for a long time. I also frequently paint to the music of my friend, fingerstyle guitarist, Rick Cyge. 

I've had a Bose CD player with big speakers and a small collection of CDs that have been my go-to painting music for, well, years. 

The CD player started acting up a while ago and then stopped working. Melissa was secretly thrilled, because the equipment took up all kinds of space, plus she said I needed to expand my musical repertoire! She suggested setting me up with a Spotify account, where I could listen to a wider variety of music and create playlists.  I resisted at first, because, you know... CHANGE...

         

But she immediately created playlists for me that include Rick's music and the Native American music, but also added new ones that are soft jazz, French ballads, and my favorite find, Caro Emerald. If you haven't heard her sing That Man or A Night Like This, you haven't lived, my friends!

She also got me my own Aftershokx headphones so I can listen not just while I paint but also when I'm just sitting around. She's very nice to me. (She made me say that).

We have had a lot of change in our life this past year, but I have to say that I think our move here to Falmouth on beautiful Cape Cod, along with this change of music, has had a positive, upbeat effect on my painting, but I'll let you decide for yourselves. Here's what I've done since expanding my musical horizons! Hope you like it!

  

July 2023

 

It's hard to believe it's been 10 months since Hurricane Ian blew through our town in Florida, and 4 months that we have been settled here on Cape Cod. It's that funny feeling where in some ways it feels much shorter, and in others, it feels much longer.

There was so much going on to get us here - home repair, packing, selling the house, organizing a move, finding a place to live, getting here, the house sale falling through,  selling the house again, unpacking, settling in - it's been a really wild ride.

But now, we are settled in and fully enjoying living in this beautiful place and everything it has to offer. Our pleasures are simple - enjoying the nearby beach, going down to Megansett harbor to watch the kids jump off the pier at the end of the day, summer theater, summer concerts, a nice meal in a waterfront restaurant, driving past shingled houses with beautiful gardens. It's nice to be able to really enjoy a simple life right in the place where you live.

I am back into my painting routine and thought I'd share some of what I've done since my last post in June. I hope you are all doing well and as always, thank you for stopping by!

I had a little theme going on for a while with these sunset paintings...

Then I had a little theme going with old/abandoned barns/houses...

And here are some other scenes I played around with...

  

Living on Cape Cod

We have come to rest in Falmouth MA on Cape Cod, and it's so beautiful! Old Silver Beach is only a four minute drive from our house. Melissa did not dilly-dally about getting the car registered here mostly because she wanted that resident beach parking sticker so bad!  We love ❤️ it here and I think it’s safe to say that we will stay forever.  We are renting a condo now and we may move in the future but I hope we don't ever have to move out of Falmouth!

Here is a picture of Old Silver Beach and one of Nobska Lighthouse in Falmouth: 

Our condo has just two bedrooms so my painting studio is shared space in the guest bedroom. My old garage-shelving set-up for painting and storing was not going to work - takes up too much space and too ugly! The solution was this beautiful easel I got from Jerry's Artarama. It's made in Italy, beautiful quality, doesn't take up a lot of space and I love painting on it! The painting you see is the one I worked on today.

So I'm back in a painting rhythm and it feels wonderful! Here's just a sample of things I've done since we got me set back up. I've gotten a variety of substrates including wrapped canvas, canvas panel, and paper to keep things interesting.

Happy Holidays! November and December 2022 Post

 Ever since Hurricane Ian blew through here at the end of September, we've been a little behind the eight ball with all sorts of things - including this blog!

We had almost $40,000 worth of damage, most of which relates to needing a new roof. Parkinson's has turned my mind to JELLO, so Melissa picked up the ball and ran with it with regard to getting repair estimates and lining up the contractors to do the work. The roof has to come first, so there is a whole sequence of events that plays into it as well. 

We still have blue tarps covering our roof, and our roofer told us we are looking at the second week of January for ours to go on. It seems far off still and we are counting the days. Literally - Melissa has marked on our calendar how many days it is until the second week of January....

Once that happens, we can have the lanai rescreened, the ceilings repaired and painted and the insulation replaced. We're hoping that will all be done by the end of February and as soon as it is, we'll be putting the house on the market and ready to forge ahead with our plan to move back to Massachusetts. 

I keep busy by painting, but have noticed that the Parkinson's is causing me to take longer to do a painting and I also feel a lot more tired afterward than I used to. Still, I am very grateful that I am still able to paint.

I've got paintings exhibited at The Yoga Sanctuary this month, with some of the proceeds of any sales going to support Guardian ad Litem. I donated the painting below, Serenity, which will be raffled off and all the money with go to GaL. Here are some shots of the display at the studio:

Serenity, Raffle Painting

Art Bin

Here is what I worked on in November and so far in December. 

Winter Barn

Native American Robe

Two of a Kind

Uphill Pathway

As always, thanks for stopping by my blog and checking out what I've been up to.

Melissa and I wish one and all a

Very Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays

and a

Happy New Year!

JR

October 2022

I haven't posted here since July! I guess I got the summer doldrums in August, but I have very good excuses for not posting in September. First, Melissa and I both finally got The Covid, after having managed to avoid it for two and a half years. We had just gotten the new and improved booster shot for the Omicron variant, and a few days later, Melissa tested positive and two days after that, I did too.

Neither of us got terribly sick though there was a day or two early on when I felt pretty awful and we were both worried that maybe, despite all our efforts, The Covid was going to get me after all! It didn't, but it was a full two weeks before I tested negative.

Then on September 28th, a horrible fellow named Ian put us in the eye of his horrible hurricane! I won't go into lots of detail, but it really was TERRIFYING and went on for more than 10 traumatizing hours! We kept hearing noises on the roof and praying that the roof didn't come off. Well, it didn't, but more than half our shingles did, and toward the end we got some water coming in through vents and the smoke detectors. Fortunately we didn't get a lot of water intrusion, but there are water stains on the ceiling and some buckling that will need to be fixed, and of of course roof repair, lanai screens, and probably repaint the exterior of the house. 

   

Our house the day after Ian and a week later after the blue tarp went on.

We didn't have water, power, internet or even cell service and stores and gas stations weren't open for days. It was getting scary, because we didn't know how long that was going to last. We thought we might be without power for weeks, but were lucky to get ours back after five days. A lot of people did go weeks though. Things are starting to get cleaned up and places re-opened, but it doesn't happen as quickly as people think. If you're not here, you think it's all over because it was a month ago, but it's not. Folks here are still shaken up and still cleaning up.

We were pretty traumatized, but realized that a lot of people have much worse situations and so we are definitely counting our blessings. We're just hoping not to come out of the whole thing broke after deductibles and out of pocket expenses!

Anyway, our BIG NEWS is that a few months ago - before Ian came through - Melissa and I had already decided to move back to New England and had our sights set on doing that next year. She's been homesick for a long time and wants to be on familiar ground and closer to family as we manage my Parkinson's. So that's still the plan but of course we need to make the home repairs first, and our buyer will have a house with nice new roof, new ceilings, and a fresh coat of paint! We're hoping to set things in motion in early spring. 

So, I haven't really painted much, because it's been hard to get back into a normal routine after a scare like that. But I've been trying. Here are a couple of paintings I recently did in water-soluble oils.

 

                               Marshland                                                               Three Pines

Before we move, we'd love to find homes for some of my paintings, so that we don't have to pack and move them or put them out for curbside pick-up! Anyone local who would like to come by and take a look at the ones we've got hanging up, or go through some of my boxes is welcome to do so! Just message Melissa through Facebook. If anyone from away sees anything in these photos that they're interested in - do the same. We'll be motivated to make good deals :)

Here are shots of the pieces on the walls in my studio that are available. I also have some large ocean scenes and southwest landscapes on gallery-wrapped canvas and plenty of ocean scenes and landscapes in smaller sizes.

Also, Jennifer French, who owns The Yoga Sanctuary where Melissa teaches, is letting me show my work throughout December. We're going to be raffling this painting to benefit Guardian ad Litem. I'll be showing a few hung pieces and will have a art bin you can look through with a variety of mostly smaller paintings on canvas panel - all original paintings.

Serenity

18" by 18" by 1.5"

Acrylic on Gallery-wrapped Canvas

So that's all the news! One of Melissa's favorite quotes from writer Faye Weldon is, "Nothing happens and nothing happens, and then everything happens." That seems to pretty much describe how it's been here.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. 

JR