Artful Holiday Giving (shameless commerce division): Art, Painting, holidays

Radishing, 8" x 10", oil on canvas

'Twas six days before Christmas, and all ‘round the place

the thoughtful delayers were starting to pace.

"Yikes! I've done nothing!" was heard here and there.

"If only I'd purchased those radishes or that pear!"

 Pear on Yellow, 8" x 8”, oil on wood

OK, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. But just in case you're still wondering what to do for a special gift or two, I am happy to wave a joyful banner for giving art. 

And to offer a few suggestions, from very small to medium to large. At the very small end, I have a fresh, new batch of note cards:  a set of six different images (or your choice of six) with envelopes, wrapped with red ribbon. 

There are also several small paintings by me (and lots of other lovely art, jewelry, balsam pillows, and more!) at  Artascope Studios at 352 Cottage Road, South Portland. They are open 10 to 6 daily until Christmas.

Other small to medium-sized paintings can be found at Yarmouth Frame Shop and Gallery at 720 US Route One in Yarmouth.

And then there's what's at my house--from notecards to small paintings, to some large ones! Such as...

In the Garden, 30" x 24," oil on canvas, framed

From now through December 31, 2011 I am offering family and friends (that's you!) 10% off any paintings purchased from me at my home. (Please note: this offer does not apply to purchases made at either Artascope or Yarmouth Frame Shop.)

If you'd like to stop by to see what's at my house, let me know! If you live too far away to do that but would like to know what I have, call or email me, and we can go from there.

Wherever you find yourself this day, I wish you a joyful holiday season! And my thanks for the many ways you have supported me and my art-making this past year.

Gone Radishing Again: painting, radishes, colors, delight

Radishing, oil on canvas, 9x12", © Sukie Curtis, 2011

More radishes! This time with a decidedly Christmas-y feel, now that we're in the season of red and green decorations. 

One fellow painter on Facebook commented that this could be "red boulders in a landscape;" do you see it? The red boulders aren't so convincing, but the radish foliage does have the look and feel of hilly shapes. And maybe even a streak of golden color in the sky!

This little painting--a real burst of color face to face--is at the Yarmouth Frame Shop and Gallery for the "Small Works" show that opens today. It is hanging together with three of my paintings of pears and a somewhat wacky and fun still life of a striped table with candlestick. 

If you live near Yarmouth (Maine, that is--not Massachusetts, Nova Scotia, or England, or . . . ), I hope you will stop by this afternoon or any other day before Christmas.

The gallery is at 320 Route One in Yarmouth. Today, Saturday, December 3, there's a reception from 4 to 7 pm. Art lovers of all kinds will be there--artists, lovers of artists, and lovers of art-lovers, too. And food!  and refreshments!

I would love to see you there. If today doesn't work for you, the gallery will be open seven days a week until Christmas.

When Death Comes: Mary Oliver, oak leaf shapes, oil paint, red leaves

Oak Leaf Shapes, oil on canvas, © 2011, Sukie Curtis (unfinished?)

Yesterday, on a very mild November day, with a gang of tufted titmice scolding us and nuthatches chattering from the overhanging branches of evergreens, we buried the ashes of my mother-in-law in a cemetery in South Weymouth, Massachusetts. This recent painting, inspired by an oak branch in a bottle, seems somehow appropriate to the occasion.

At the graveside, our prayers were accompanied by a psalm and Mary Oliver's poem "When Death Comes."

"When Death Comes"  by Mary Oliver

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common 

as a field daily, and as singular;

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my lie something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Painting Radishes 1

Small Square Radishes, oil on canvas, © 2011 Sukie Curtis

I paint radishes more than I eat them. That's just the way it is! 

I can hardly resist buying new bunches of them at the farmers market, even when I have an older bunch at home. But I've learned that they keep an impressively long time in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, and can be my painting models and muses many times over, though their greens go limp and eventually rot. 

Even then, the life force and the "urge" to live and create new life is so strong in them that in the dark and cold of the refrigerator drawer, old radishes will sprout vigorous new root hairs and even pale, spindly greens. They are built to live and flourish.

And to ravish the eyes: such lovely round, though not perfectly round, shapes! such whimsical, quirky tails! and such colors! 

These days radishes come in more than just shades of red, crimson, and pink; there's deep blue-violet, wild magenta, pale pink, and a blush creamy white. And if that's not enough, you can always make up other colors as you paint them! Why not?

Which reminds me: the collage artist and children's book author and illustrator Eric Carle has a new book out, The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse. Carle calls it "an homage to the Expressionist painter Franz Marc." Carle was inspired at a young age by Marc's work when a teacher showed him his painting of a blue horse. 

Sneak Preview: Paintings, Yarmouth Art Festival

Radishes with a Peach, oil on canvas, 10" x 10"

In The Garden, oil on canvas, 30" x 24"

Peonies in a French Vase, oil on canvas, 12" x 12"

Here's a sneak preview of three of my paintings that will be on display and for sale at the Yarmouth Art Festival, October 19 to 22, sponsored and hosted by St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in Yarmouth, Maine.

If you're in the area, please come by for the Artists' Reception with refreshments and live music (and live artists) on Thursday, October 20 from 6 to 8 pm.

The church-turned-gallery will be open Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 10 am to 6 pm, and on Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm. If you'd like to preview other pieces in the art festival, follow the above link to the "flickr" slideshow.

And if you don't want to wait for the show to open and you know you'd like one of these pieces before someone else gets a chance, let me know! A portion of the sales will still be given to St. Bart's community outreach.

Painting Make-over: Sharpie and More Paint!

Radishes, © 2011 oil (and Sharpie) on canvas

One of the great outcomes of teaching a class called "Expression in Paint" at Artascope Studios in South Portland is discovering what matters most to me in my own painting. What elements are (at least currently, since things do change) so essential to my own way of expressing myself in paint that I neglect them to my peril.

I can't say exactly how this has come about. It's a combination of slowing way, way down in order to watch what I do when I'm "not looking," by which I mean not over-thinking or over-editing myself. When I am trusting myself and whatever mysterious creative force it is that moves us all when we are open to it. That, and actually painting there in the class under different circumstances than at home; I paint a little differently there, and I'm still figuring out just how.

Some of my best (I think) paintings happen when I: 

• paint over old paintings (what's underneath provides plenty of opportunities for happy accidents of texture and color combinations and things peeking through from beneath)
• draw quickly over an old painting, either with paint or with black Sharpie marker to get my bearings and leave interesting marks showing through in places
• use more paint (it's easy to get "stingy" with paint) and push it around, either with a palette knife or with a pretty stiff brush.

The Sharpie first entered my repertoire as an ally when I once drew a quick freehand sketch on a yellow-painted wall in my garage, and I found it exhilarating! 

I've been a bit timid about admitting my Sharpie use in painting, as if some sort of Painting Orthodoxy Police might get wind of it and, and . . . what? Ban me from the world of "real art?" 

It's as if I think my Sharpie usage might disqualify me from some unnamed, desired realm, or immediately confirm my illegitimacy as a painter. (I comfort myself with the thought that if Sharpies had been around in earlier decades, somebody who is now a famous painter--Picasso is usually my go-to guy--would probably have used one. Right? And if not, who cares?)

So here are some radishes painted over an unsuccessful semi-impressionistic attempt at fall foliage from a few years ago. 

One other observation: I held myself back from "correcting" myself as I went along. I resisted fixing things up to be more right and proper and "better" (realistic?) according to some left-brain critic. I think that's why it works as well as it does. 

These Radishes have already gotten lots of "buzz" from my Facebook supporters (thank you, all!). "Free and beautiful" is one of the comments that's easiest for me to remember and that I will carry with me for the rest of today.

KISSing this Blog Hello Again

© Sukie Curtis, 2011, ink on paper

I know it's bad form (and just plain boring) for a blogger to comment on how long it's been since she has blogged, but sometimes it shocks me to see just how long.

And though I didn't grow up as a Roman Catholic (far from it, in fact, as a Unitarian!), I suppose it's my twenty-five-years-plus sojourn in the realm of Christian religious practices that accounts for my nearly automatic inclination to launch into a mock-confession:

Forgive me, readers. It has been . . . (fill in the appropriate number). . . weeks since my last post.

But enough of that.

Because I've made a decision to KISS this blog hello again. Meaning, I've decided that the way to blog more often is to Keep It Simple, Stupid, or maybe I could make that sound more friendly to myself and say, Keep It Simple, Silly. Or even, Keep It Simple, Sukie!

Rather than not blog because I have way too many ideas about what to say next, and don't know where to start, or how best to approach something (shades of near-perfectionism creeping in), I'm just going to post stuff.

Sometimes just a drawing from my almost-daily sketchbook. Sometimes a painting that I'm working on, posted even before it's finished. Sometimes things I'm thinking about making art or being an official empty-nester.

It seems possible, though I am not making any grand pronouncement here, that posting more often would actually help me to keep going better than posting less often. Get into a rhythm, make it no big deal, just part of what I do. That idea.

We shall see. And in the meantime, that image up there at the top is what's called a "blind contour drawing" that I did while teaching my class at Artascope Studios in South Portland. Maybe I won't even tell you what object it represents. Maybe you'd like to guess!