Cool Green
90-degrees – 50% humidity. Needless to say, it’s hot. It’s the kind of day you’d like to have air conditioning in your car for the four-hour drive from New Haven to Philadelphia. The kind of day that’s too hot for six rounds of unloading my son’s college gear up two flights of stairs into an apartment with no fan. The kind of day when an air conditioned coffee shop with a 12-foot-square living wall packed with ferns is the perfect respite before saying goodbye and taking a train back home.
Sea and Sky
“There is magic in the distance where the sea-line meets the sky.” Alfred Noyes While in Maine recently, I had several opportunities to observe that magical place described by Noyes. When the light is just right, sea and sky merge. I’ve been playing with how to capture that on paper ever since.
Gone Coastal
A week on an island in Maine means only one thing: I’ve gone coastal. I shut off e-mail and social media, tune out news, turn off work, and I cram as much hiking, cycling, exploring, and, of course, painting as I can into seven highly cherished days. I live by the tides, stay up too late painting, wake up early to see the first light on the water, poke in tide pools, scour mudflats and rocky ledges for shorebirds, seek out new trails and vistas, dodge mosquitoes, and manage to come away both… Read More
Poetry of Onions
“…Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished…” – Mary Oliver, Messenger I spent a recent rainy morning with two artist friends at Walker Farm in Brattleboro, Vermont. The sunflowers and peaches, carrots and tomatoes, and a riot of bright-colored petunias in the greenhouse were a painter’s dream. But somehow I found myself drawn to an old shed, where several bushels of onions caught the dim light. If you haven’t read Mary Oliver’s poem, Messenger, I recommend it… Read More
Season of Abundance
It is the season of abundance. Farm stands and farmer’s markets overflow with luscious color and variety. Gardens are ripening toward their fullest beauty. I am utterly drawn in. Forgive me if you are a lover of cabbage. Aside from when it is disguised in coleslaw or egg rolls, I find cabbage hard to enjoy…except when painting it. Then the lovely blending of purples and greens and blues, of leaf shapes and of the spaces between them reveal the cabbage’s true beauty. I got down on the ground for this perspective of… Read More
Jean Mackay
The Nature Explorer’s Sketchbook
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Drawn In 