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! 

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 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! 

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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. 

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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 

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.

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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...

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:

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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.

A Painting from Alabama

Beach Houses, Fort Monroe, Alabama

Oil on canvas, 18x18

I drove and drove Sunday, and finally made it to El Paso, the last big town in Texas. I stopped to have my oil changed, and with a huge smile, left Texas and entered New Mexico. Yay! 

But the wind, which had been pretty strong all day, had kicked up into a huge gale. It was blowing the van all over the road, and blowing sand and dust all over the road and everywhere else, too. 

There was no chance of painting - even driving was tough. So I stopped early, just thankful to be in New Mexico. 

I will get to Tubac today - and probably have time to paint on the way there! 

***

Scenes from the (dusty) day

Saw a bunch of cows in Texas

This adobe house captured my imagination

The truck stops have some cool stuff for sale

YAY! 

 Dust made it really hard to see, and wind made it really hard to drive

 Dog of the day! Looks tough, but he was sweet.