My Daddy

*click to enlarge*

"To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter"

Euripides

Your daughters thinking you're 68...not so dear.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

In the Studio

Short on time and inspiration...I found both this weekend.  Inspiration via Instagram...while Jane Lilly Warren (one half of Matchbook Magazine) toured the Renwick Gallery, part of the Smithsonian, I was stuck inside (more rain) with some time on my hands.  Time to think...and time to think out loud on Instagram.

The original painting from

Jane Lilly Warren's Instagram tour.

via here

Betty Wertheimer

completion date 1908

John Singer Sargent

National Museum of American Art

As soon as she posted the pic of Sargent's Betty Wertheimer, I posted it to my easel and went about developing a painting based on this painting.

I was drawn more to the colors in the Instagram pic rather than those in the original painting.  The gilt frame, the yellow overtones, her creamy skin, a hint of gray...all complimenting her rose dress.

Working in layers of acrylic...once dry, adding some depth and texture with iridescent gold and oils.

A humbling experience...I'm naming this one "Practice."  Thankful I have a day job.  Mayhem however...needs a job.  For sale...original work by an emerging artist.  

Very Cy Twombly?

via here

In the rain - Friday Flowers

"Looking at a painting by Jenn Shifflet is like being

submerged in water or floating in outer space."

From the essay by Chandra Cerrito

read in its entirety here

For more work by artist Jenn Shifflet

www.jennshifflet.com

Jenn Shifflet's work appropriate for this rainy day.  Like looking through our foggy windows out onto the flooded yard.  In the courtyard...the blooms of our Annabelle hydrangea are heavy with the weight of the raindrops.

Inside, in a vase...safe from the deluge.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND

Write it on your heart

JUNE 3, 2006

Hey Stud...every day is the best day in the year with you.

Thank you for giving me your heart...

and continuing to doodle it everywhere.

2005

Before our engagement

2006

Before moving into our house...

and painting the infamous teal wall

2013

Before going on a business trip...

just a few weeks ago

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

In the Dirt

A letter I received from my Mother-in-law earlier this spring.  Enclosed with her note, a clipping long saved from Reader's Digest...Helen Hayes on her love of digging in the dirt.

*click to enlarge*

"All through the long winter I dream of my garden. On the first warm day of Spring I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth.  I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar."

-Helen Hayes, 1992

My Mother-in-law was reminded of a poem by Archibald Rutledge from her copy of Deep River.  Poet Laureate of South Carolina, his ancestral roots run deep in South Carolina, a firm foundation for the more than fifty books we wrote in his lifetime.....celebrating the low country, wildlife, and the natural world he loved so much.

via here

An excerpt from that poem...titled Earth.

How wonderful is earth!

This soil of precious worth!

Though gold be gold, it has no life to give;

But in the furrow dark

There waits a vital spark

That whispers to the seed, "Awake and live!"

Published circa 1960, part of the collection below 

DEEP RIVER

The Complete Poems of Archibald Rutledge

Out of print, but a signed copy is available here for $400.

Hey MeMe...hold on to your copy!

Have a great weekend.  I'll be in the dirt...planting begonias