Farm, Fairfield, VA

Farm, Fairfield, VA

Oil on canvas, 10x10

AS I SETTLE BACK into life in Wachapreague, start winding down the Tubac trip paintings and starting painting for the summer show season, I have heard myself say - more than once - "the trip was great, the West is gorgeous, but there's no place more beautiful than Wachapreague." 

Thinking about that, I have realized that the painting trips I have taken have been about discovery - and rediscovery. 

One of life's great pleasures - for me - is to seek the beauty of a place where I've never been, and then find it and paint it. 

Doing this brings my senses alive. It challenges me to see what is captivating and enchanting. It entreats me to become engaged in the present and to forget my own self, my past, my future. It invites me to fall in love. 

The great joy has been to see home with those same discovering eyes, and to find myself as pleased and as taken by home as I have been with the magic of the landscapes far away. 

Here's the photo of the farm I painted in Fairfield, VA

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I NOW HAVE TWO sponsors for my next trip - and I don't even know where or when that trip will be. But I am open to suggestion... so: ideas? 

I'm going to come up with three or four possible destinations, and then let the sponsors decide. With luck and good timing, I'll find shows in those places, too.  

  

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I HAVE PUT the Tubac trip paintings up on Gallery Sprout, a fabulous website created by Peter Bachelder, to help artists show and track their work. One of my great sponsors introduced me to it, and it's great! 

To see the paintings all in one place (I still have some to add, but we're getting there), go to gallerysprout.com, and search for carrie jacobson. Otherwise, try clicking here, and then click on the thumbnails. This is not ideal, and I am working on a way for you to see all the paintings larger than thumbnail and on one page, but this is a start.  

At the end of the month, I am going to begin asking for your choices, so please start thinking about which painting(s) you want! 

*** 

 These horses were having a nice breakfast on this 43-degree morning, just outside of Quinby

Here's our house, at the most beautiful time of the year. Well, maybe mid-week, it will be even more lovely, when the rest of the azaleas bloom, and the pink dogwood really pops. 

A pretty spring road near Wachapreague

Just outside of downtown Wachapreague. These boats will probably be in the water soon. 

On Sunday, Atlantic Avenue in Wachapreague was lined with trucks and trailers and fishermen, as the annual flounder tournament wound down. The largest one caught was 8.4 pounds.

Main Street in beautiful Wachapreague

Dawn over the salt marsh on Sunday, just down the street from our house. 

Here's me painting in Harshaw, Arizona! This photo was taken by the sister of Carol Keil, 

an artist who lives in Tubac

Here's Peter! 

***

And here is Ellie, the Dog of the Day. She's the best pal of Patricia Holloway, 

who writes a lovely blog called Missives from Missouri

I'd love to feature your dog as Dog of the Day! Please send a jpg via email to carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

Hillside Farm

 Hillside Farm, Pulaski, VA

Oil on canvas, 10x10

Here are some thoughts I had on the trip, and some things I noticed that never made their way into my emails: 

IF YOU WANT A JOB, the South wants you.

Starting in Georgia, I began to see huge highway billboards announcing jobs available. I saw these through Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Louisiana. 

In general, I didn't recognize the companies, but they seemed to range from manufacturing to oil to high-tech, just judging from the names. Of course, the pay levels were not listed on the billboards. But there are jobs for people in cities in those states. 

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FROM NOVEMBER until just about 10 days ago, an arsonist here on the Eastern Shore burned more than 70 abandoned buildings. Night after night, the fire alarm would sound, and the little volunteer fire companies would go out and find an old, abandoned building ablaze. 

Police came here in droves, and tried everything they could think of to find the culprit, but the fires continued, night after night after night. 

Finally, a cop pretty much stumbled on them - a man and his girlfriend - and made the arrests. The couple confessed to setting most of the fires. The remainder were set, I am sure, by opportunistic homeowners. 

Maybe this is something that only someone who lives on the Eastern Shore would understand, but as I drove along through the South and toward the West, and saw abandoned building after abandoned building, I found myself thinking: "Gee, I bet the arsonist would like THAT building..."

It was only then that I realized that I'd been thinking those very same thoughts for months about abandoned buildings here. 

***

AS I DROVE THROUGH LOUISIANA, and the outskirts of New Orleans, I saw a sign for the French Quarter, Le Vieux Carre. I've seen photos and movies of the French Quarter all my life, it seems. Heard people's stories, read travel articles and restaurant reviews, read novels set in and around New Orleans. 

My decision not to go into the city brought with it a certain feeling of finality. If I didn't go to New Orleans this trip, it seems unlikely that I will ever go to New Orleans. 

I remember leaving Key West during an unhappy art-fair trip to Florida in November and realizing that I would never go back there. I'd seen Key West, I'd stood on the edge of America, seen Mile Zero, seen the descendants of Hemingway's cats - and I would not be back. 

I'm 56. Not old, but not young, either. There are millions of places to see, and I am not done seeing them. 

Sometimes I think of life as a long, long hallway with many, many doors opening onto many, many choices and many, many experiences. I can't quite see the end of the hallway, but I am starting to know that it is there. 

While there are hundreds of doors ahead of me, some of the ones behind me have swung shut and are locked tight. 

***

Scenes from the Road

Waves on the Outer Banks of North Carolina 

This scene from Fort Monroe, AL, is going to make it into a painting soon. 

This Texas farm was abandoned, I think. I like the way the buildings sit on the land, and in the big Texas sunshine. 

These saguaro cacti were growing pretty high up, on the road to Sedona. 

THE DOG OF THE DAY is Gypsy, who lives with Heather MacLeod and her husband Joe Keller in snowy Brownfield, Maine!  Your dog can be the Dog of the Day, too! Send me a photo at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com 

Sahuarita Saguaro

Saguaro, Sahuarita, AZ

Oil on canvas, 10x10

Our daughter, son-in-law and their two kids - 10 and 11 - are visiting, and I painted as much as I could in advance of their visit.  

Painting from photos of the trip brings the sights and sounds and scents of these beautiful places back to me in full. No, it's not the thrill of painting right on the site, but it is just as fine, in a more contemplative way. 

For those of you who haven't painted en plein air (outside, on scene), it can be just the greatest thing in the world. Standing in the landscape you're painting, you can see the light and shadows with real clarity. You can smell the earth and hear the wind and feel the sun (or rain) ... (or mist)... (or snow)... on your face. 

You can mix a color on your palette and hold it up to compare it to the color of what you're painting. You can easily shorten or lengthen distances, take out trees, push mountains back - make the adjustments you need to make to make the landscape a painting - and still check your changes against reality. 

I love it - but it's not a utopia. That wind can and does tip your easel over. Bugs fly around you, and get stuck in your paint. Sand and dirt and dust and little bits of who knows what also fly all over the place and end up in the painting. The sun can bounce off the canvas and pretty much blind you to colors. 

And above all, the light and shadows can change in a minute, so you'd better learn to paint fast. 

With all this, I have to say that it's my favorite thing to do. 

My next favorite is doing these studio pieces. I am enjoying the luxury of time, of easel stability, of light that doesn't change. It's great to be able to use the bathroom in the house, to get a hot cup of coffee, and to make a fresh sandwich to enjoy during my lunch break. 

And all the time, the photos and the paintings remind me about the places, the people, the discoveries of my trip out West. 

           

***

Here are some tidbits about saguaro cacti, according to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum: 

The cacti, the defining feature of the Sonora Desert are found exclusively there. 

Most important for their growth are water and temperature - though elevation is a factor. Too high, and the cold weather will kill them. 

The cacti don't all grow arms, though many do. 

They can live 150-200 years, if conditions are right! 

***

Scenes from the road (and elsewhere) 

I love the way the road winds along the hillsides of this New Mexico town, and I think it would make an excellent painting.

I haven't done a donkey painting, but I think I might have to give it a try. 

This will definitely become a cowscape. 

I think I need to make a 10x10 of azaleas! 

****

And, finally, an invitation: Since I am home now, it's a little tougher to get a Dog of the Day. I can always send photos of my dogs, but how fun is that? My friend and sponsor Sherry Svec sent me this photo of me with her dog Jack, and so Jack is the Dog of the Day today. 

Here's the invite: Send me a photo of your dog - with or without you in it, as you wish - and your dog could be the Dog of the Day. Click here to email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

Back Home and Painting

 Near the Border

Oil on canvas, 10x10

Tubac Trip Painting no. 21

I am home, finally, in beautiful downtown Wachapreague, where I'm unpacking, touching up paintings, editing photographs and ... painting! 

I took hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of photos on the trip, and dozens of them are destined to make their way into paintings. 

This house, on the Texas/Louisiana border, was one that I knew would be a painting as soon as I saw it. This piece is a 10x10, and I am also going to make a larger one. I love the way the house sits on the land, and the way the sun plays on the faces of the building. 

I thought about stopping and painting it, but there were people at home at the time, and they were looking at me oddly as I took photos, so painting on site seemed a stretch. 

***

I've found my next project - and it is part of this one, in a way. My final day of driving was a long one, taking me from eastern Tennessee to home, through western Virginia. 

It was a long, gray day, that started with fog and ended with rain. Not a day for painting, not even considering the long drive I had. But it brought me through absolutely gorgeous countryside, and I took tons of photos. 

I've started to paint these, and will continue to paint them - but when I am finished with the Tubac trip paintings, I intend to drive to western Virginia and paint for a few days.

***

Scenes from the Days

 These four photos show some of the beautiful Virginia farms I passed on my way home from Arizona. I am going to paint these as part of the Tubac trip, then go back to the area and paint more of them.

The photo above and the two below show Wachapreague, VA, the lovely Eastern Shore town where we live. It's just about the most beautiful place on Earth, I think. The building in the photo above is the Island House, a restaurant we're lucky to have in town! 

One of the inlets of our beautiful town

Wachapreague Friday morning, on our street.

Dogs of the Day are two of our dogs! Jojo to the left and Woody to the right... or Jo and Yo and I sometimes call them...

See Pieces from the Tubac trip in the Groton Public Library!

Some of my western landscapes

"Carden Holland and I hung our show "There and Back" at the Groton Public Library on Friday and it looks great! 


All of the 10x10s I've made so far from the Tubac trip are hanging, as are three of the large pieces. 

Carden has a whole bunch of beautiful pieces, some in oils, some using a multimedia technique she's developed over the years. 

The show will be up through the 26th, though Carden's work will come down a few days earlier. 

On Saturday, I will be at the library pretty much all day, so please stop in! 

Some of Carden's work

For all of you who don't know Carden, she taught art for 23 years in the school system in Ledyard, CT. She now lives in central Pennsylvania, where she makes art and rides her horse Lauren. 

Carden says she makes art because it's what she has always done. 

"Drawings always enhanced my schoolwork, mural work beckoned me, and once I was in junior and senior high school, I was in art classes and working on the school magazine and yearbook. No wonder I went to art school, where I majored in painting." 

"I found my voice as an art teacher and remained one for 33 years," she says. During that time, she painted, made ceramic sculpture, participated in many juried shows, and had a few solo shows, as well. 

"Now in retirement," Holland says, "I am still inspired by my new surroundings and I am  still making art in a variety of media." 

Her work in our show is really wonderful. There are a few oil paintings, and the rest are paintings made with a fantastic process that uses gouache and ink. She makes the pieces on paper, then washes them in a tub and recolors them. They are fascinating and alluring pieces! 

The Groton Public Library, 52 Newtown Road, Groton, is open seven days a week, though the hours vary. For info, check the site at http://www.grotonpl.org/

Gorton's Pond, by Carden Holland

Fort Monroe, AL, by Carrie Jacobson

New London Fishermen, by Carden Holland

Our shared wall

***

p.s. Though I don't know where my next painting trip will take me,

 I already have my first sponsor! 

The High Road

Outside Santa Fe

Oil on canvas, 10x10

I was driving through the mountains, from the highway toward Madrid, NM, when I came around a curve and the land opened up into a broad meadow, with mountains at the edges.

Everything in my soul sighed, and I found a smile on my face.

Until that moment, I hadn't realized how much I love the open spaces. Yes, I joke about belonging to the Big Field, Little House school of painting - but until today, I didn't understand how visceral is the drive to be in those places, and paint those places.

I love the mountains - but I don't so much love being in them. I love trees, but I don't so much love being surrounded by them.

When I am at the edge of a huge field, or at the edge of the ocean, or when I'm at the edge of the salt marsh or a big field of snow, my heart and my head and my soul find the space to rejoice, to relax, to imagine.

I found particular beauty in this scene, a ranch house and barn at the edge of a huge field, snug against the mountains. Later in the day, I found myself enchanted by Eagle Nest, New Mexico. And at the edge of Taos, I found fields and mountains and great storm clouds. There were too many people and too much traffic to allow me to paint - but I took a ton of photos.

Here's my painting in the landscape:

***

Scenes from the Day

I spent the day traveling the high roads from Albuqueque to Las Vegas, NM 

A wall of bottles outside of Madrid, NM

In Madrid, NM, the houses are brightly colored, and some have paintings on them. One resident proudly told me that the town doesn't have a mayor, a government, a police department or any corporations. It does have lots of shops, galleries and artists. 

The town of Madrid, NM, takes care of Brush, the dog. He was neglected by his owner, who then moved away and left him, and the town took over.

Lots of mountains today, and lots of clouds. 

Ever seen a Mickey D's sign like this? 

I never saw a cow in the road, in spite of about 50 signs. 

Truchas, NM, is about 9,000 feet up. 

This red brushy stuff was all over the high country as I drove through. 

I love how open Eagle Nest, NM, is. The town of about 500 is 9,000 feet high. 

I saw lots of mountains today, and dramatic skies, too! 

Great storm clouds outside of Taos. 

Sunset in Las Vegas, NM

Dog of the Day! With no explanation or introduction, the morning weatherman

 did his entire gig holding a Chihuahua.