Dogs, Chickens, and Me

Boring Still Life

2012-02-15T17:20:00.000-05:00

It's not hard to figure out what I liked about this still life. I've always loved to do drapery. I saw this picture in a decorating magazine and was intrigued by the different kinds of cloth in the picture. Sydney had just given me a small box of hard pastels, so I forced myself out of my stagnant routine and tackled it. It is fairly big, 18x24? and looks better in the picture than it really is. I've spent time for three days on it and have decided to call it finished. It was a good reminder of why I have trouble with pastels.....I can't get the range of values that I like. Pastels are all about color, which doesn't intrigue me in the least. Of course the subject matter is bland as well. I started at the bottom, and once I had done the big blue-green drape my fun was over. The flowers were nothing but drudgery and the other drapes weren't intricate enough to hold my interest. With a subject as unexciting as this, the technique really has to be interesting, and although I tried at the end by putting charcoal lines here and there to clean up the edges, it was too little too late.

I'm not sorry I did it because it took up some of the seemingly endless empty hours that at this time constitute my life.

I can't help it...here's some of Thom's pictures

2012-02-08T15:08:00.002-05:00

Playtime

2012-02-08T14:55:00.000-05:00

David, Thom, and I took the dogs for a romp at the local campground. This activity has been impossible until Willy came along. The Lhasa Apsos are not interested in playing with other dogs...not even each other. On the other hand, Willy has boundless energy and a big ego. Far from afraid of bigger dogs, he relishes being with them. Dylan is also a boy with lots of energy and likes to play. So the two of them spent probably twenty minutes or so running full speed. We humans finally had to put a stop to it, fearing that one or both of them would have a heart attack.

The two of them looked adorable together...

Latest Configuration

2012-02-08T14:37:00.000-05:00

Since I lost Lytton, one of the few things I can think of to do is rearrange furniture. This is the second of the most recent arrangments, inspired by the addition of the secretary Mike gave me when he moved. What drives me most , though, is the desire for change. I've never really unearthed the reason for this compulsion, but since moving into this house I have managed to contain it to the various rooms within it. From the time I left Parkview Avenue after the divorce in 1996 I have lived in 14 different places. I have actually lived in the house I have now twice......once when I first moved to Eastport in 1997. I came in November and left in April because of my mother's illness. Then in 1999 I came back for several months, then back to Bangor again in 2000. When did I return to Eastport? I can't remember. Those were difficult years best forgotten, but since then I've been in six different places. I began this blog in 2005, I think, and I was still two houses ahead of this one. If not for the chickens I probably would have moved again, but they have put down roots for me. Not many landlords accept chickens.

So, I move furniture and revel in each change. I look forward to going into the living room to watch TV in the evening when I know I will be in a different place. I love to go to bed when I am looking at a different wall or window. Reading the paper is a treat when the breakfast table is not where it was the day before. My pleasure is not diminished by the knowledge that sooner or later, when the strangeness wears off, I will move things again.

The Crane Mobile

2012-02-01T15:08:00.000-05:00

It's a rainy, dismal day so I decided to follow through with my origami project. I have planned on making a mobile out of the many cranes I made. I even bought some metal rings to hang them from. As usual, though, nothing goes as smoothly as one would like. Yesterday I put thread in all the cranes and hung them over the back of a chair. I was almost done when I mistakenly hit one of the cranes with my elbow. It sent them all spinning, and if you have ever made or owned a mobile, you can imagine what happened. The thread became hopelessly tangled. I tried for what seemed like an hour to detangle the thread, but it was implssible. I had to cut the cranes loose and start again.

This morning I tackled the project again. My attempts to tie the thread over the ring were disasterous, with more tangling and more cutting. Neither could I figure out a way to hang the ring that didn't look ridiculous. Finally I hit upon the idea of hanging the cranes individually from the chain on my swag lamp. I still had to tie knots in the thread and then attach them to the chain with little pieces of picture hanging wire. Eventually the result was as good as I was prepared to accept.

I sometimes question the way I spend my time.

Quiche

2012-02-01T13:02:00.000-05:00

I have tried without success to use up the eggs I find in the chickens' nest. I made this quiche the other day, and then an angel cake (12 egg whites). Both were successful, but the fact is, I don't like quiche, or angel food cake. Nor do I like omelets, scrambled eggs, souffles or any other predominently eggy dishes. Every day there are from 6 to 12 beautiful eggs that I look at with dismay, pile in the refrigerator, and wonder what to do. Being the recluse that I am, I have no one to give them to but Thom and David. They do their best, but it barely makes a dent in the supply. I've thought of selling them, but I don't want people coming to the door to buy them.

It's too bad that I like chickens, but I don't like eggs.

Penny takes a walk..

2012-01-31T11:12:00.000-05:00

It is absolutely impossible to keep this chicken in the pen. Here she is checking out the neighborhood. When I saw her through the window, I went outside and asked her what she was doing. She ran toward me and then followed me back to the gate, dutifully going into the pen. I fear for her life. The world is not safe for a loose chicken. Two days ago I spent about an hour in the freezing cold trying to devise yet another escape-proof pen. So far it's been working, but I have a feeling it's only a matter of time.

Progress

2012-01-31T11:01:00.000-05:00

You couldn't ask for more than this.........

One "Last" Name and Winter Birds

2012-01-27T12:19:00.000-05:00

Once again I have renamed my new puppy and I think this is the last time. I settled on William....I thought an English name would be appropriate because of his heritage. I kept trying different ones, looking at him at the same time. That was the problem with the others...they were good names but somehow didn't fit him. Finally I felt connected to him when I called him William or Willie. Another clue was that I didn't constantly forget what I had named him....a good sign. Since then I have used that name and it still fits. I wanted to take a photo of him with his new name....the beginning of our relationship with him as himself.

There is a blizzard today and my bird feeders were empty, so I threw open the window and hauled them inside. The birds were waiting impatiently on the roof next door. A couple of them flew up to the open window so close I worried they would come right through it. I know that I take pictures every year of birds at the feeders that look remarkably the same, but I can't resist. The ice in this picture is on the window, not the feeders, and the snow is invisible, but at least the camera didn't focus on the screen. I got my "good" camera out and was surprised that I remembered how to use it. Apparently the information I studied when I first got the camera sunk in while I wasn't looking. My usual camera couldn't get the birds.

Slowly I am getting used to the idea that Lytton is gone in that I don't think about him every minute. Therefore I don't cry like I did, though tears still well up when I do think of him. Despite Patrick, despite Willie, he will always be my best boy.

Day 2 of the Painting

2012-01-26T15:45:00.000-05:00

The color in the picture is off, and so are the values, but this picture is a decent representation of the painting I started yesterday. The walls are much darker in reality for one thing. I don't think I ruined it, despite my fears, but since I didn't accomplish what I wanted, there is no reason for having painted this. I don't really know what I wanted, either. Anyway, this is my dining room, but I left out all the plants and pictures on the wall. Why?one might ask......that is just as mysterious as the existence of the painting in the first place. Well, I followed my instincts.......and ended up with nothing.

Red Piano Painting

2012-01-25T21:45:00.000-05:00

I haven't painted in quite awhile and decided to try this today. If I were a different artist, I could leave it alone. I would see it in an art magazine and love it. But this is just a start. I will take away its spontaneity and turn it into one of my usual competent paintings...........but this is me now, sitting at the table in my dining room, somber and surrounded by the trappings of my life, my red piano an attempt to brighten my shoddy surroundings, with minimal success. It is exactly as it is, without its mask.

Peaceable Kingdom

2012-01-23T14:36:00.000-05:00

Now after two days there is a kind of tentative truce between the three dogs. Mainly Veni (changed spelling) has learned to leave Patrick alone. He has settled down somewhat, too, and seems to be learning how things work around here. When I went into the living room to take this picture he was sleeping with the others but sprang to attention as soon as he saw me. He stayed put, though, and lay back down when I left.

Toni came over this morning and met him. She fell in love with him immediately, and loved his name. This helped me to settle down on both counts. On our walk this morning I had an attack of regret and gave some thought to returning him to his former owner. He is so different from all my other dogs. He's almost the perfect example of dogs I have always disliked.....tiny, short-haired, pointy nosed, hyperactive. Well, it is time for me to move on, give up my prejudices and accept him for what he is..which is not Lytton.

Name Change

2012-01-21T18:11:00.000-05:00

I think I have settled on a name at last, though that could change at any moment. Last night David suggested Winston Churchill. I thought that was a great name, but again I could never remember it. A lot of the time I called him Vincent instead, stuttering out a combination of the two. I liked Vincent after Vincent Van Gogh, but Then I started calling him Vinny, which somehow brought to mind the one thing I remember from Latin: Veni, Vidi, Vinci......I came, I saw, I conquered. Since that seems to be his attitude, it seemed appropriate. His nickname will still be Vinny, with a slight change of pronunciation but his real name will be Venivedivici.

Last night he slept in the crook of my arm all night, much to the dismay of Patrick and Benny. Patrick let him have it this afternoon, though.......a really vicious attack. I had to haul him off. Poor vinny was absolutely petrified for the rest of the afternoon. His whole body was shaking. By suppertime, though, he was back at it, tormenting Patrick. who merely snarled to remind him who was boss. At that point Vinny scampered good-naturedly away to see what else there was to do. He is almost never still. He has boundless energy. He's different from the other dogs I've had and i'm glad. He's a whole new eperience.

Dandy

2012-01-20T11:04:00.000-05:00

I can't say too much about Dandy yet. He arrived last night.........the antithesis of all the dogs I've had, particularly Lytton. I wanted no chance for comparison. I want him to be himself, and only himself. He's a Jack Russell Terrier, smaller than the other dogs, but certainly a ball of energy. In the bottom picture he has a bone left over from Toni's dogs, but toys are hard to find in this house. I trashed every one I had so as not to think of Lytton. Dandy will have his own.

So far Patrick and Benny are totally miffed at the new development. They are barely civil, but trying to be polite to the unwelcome guest who showed up unexpectedly.

Sea Smoke

2012-01-15T09:29:00.000-05:00

I haven't been able to look at my blog since I posted the last picture of Lytton. It has been an agonizing week that threatens to continue indefinitely. I know it won't. We all get through mourning to some extent, with the shreds of old losses still clinging to the new when they arrive. I am mourning now every kitten I lost as a child, every cat we had as I was growing up. McGaffney, Monique, her kittens, Snafu, Tafu and Fubar. Samantha, Mickey, Sylvia, Ceasar, Ashley, Sam, Stanley, Claudie....................monkies Chico, Cindy, Fred, Amy, and Charles. Then there came a string of cats after I left home, Lenny, Casey, Bwana, Buddy, Patrick, Hamlet, Emma. There were horses, too: BJ, Gideon, Cameo, Darby, and Alise. Then the first dog, Molly, then Mack and Beau, Natasha, Bandit..........my baby Ben Joe, then Pebbles and Happy, then Lytton, Benny, and Patrick. I carry them like a bucket of tears that keeps getting heavier and heavier.

The Last Day

2012-01-01T13:37:00.000-05:00

I had to let him go.

Christmas

2011-12-27T12:32:00.000-05:00

Our Christmas was a festive day befitting the occasion. In the first picture is my brother Mike on the left, then David, then Sydney and Richard. Thom was probably fixing food. He seems to be always fixing or serving food, which I hope is his choice rather than his obligation. He is a wonderful cook and our dinner of stuffed roast pork with several accompaniments was wonderful. The second picture shows the origami frogs I made for each person to play with. This was not the hit we hoped for, but I enjoyed doing it anyway. The third picture is, of course, Dylan playing with and destroying his present of a stuffed Dalmation. Next is my contribution, the Christmas log that has been part of every Christmas I have ever had. My mother used to make it. She decorated it the way I did this year, with cherries and aluminum foil leaves. The sprinkled nuts is my addition, but otherwise it is faithful to hers. The last picture is, of course, the tree. I don't know why I couldn't get a clear picture of it, but it was beautiful. In the morning we opened gifts and had breakfast (Thom's wonderful omelets, of course, and bacon ). Because of this adopted family I lack nothing in the way of holiday tradition and celebration, despite the fact that my kids weren't able to come and share it all. Mike was an added one-time pleasure.

I had intended to drive to Bangor and have lunch with Elizabeth, who is visiting her son for the holiday. It was one of the very few chances we get to see one another since she moved to Cape Cod. It snowed yesterday and the day before, unfortunately, and I didn't want to tackle the 2 1/2 hour drive with the roads in poor condition. So the opportunity was missed......the only disappointment of what was otherwise an ideal Christmas.

Portrait of Gaye and Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T20:09:00.000-05:00

I spent most of the day finishing this portrait that I started a few days ago. It's from a picture I took of an old acquaintance, or possibly I should call her a friend. She shows up in my life off and on because of Diana, who somehow came to know her after I did. She comes to Eastport with Diana sometimes and stays a few days. I came to know her when I was in school studying art is the 90's. She was a big presence in the Art Department, partly because she's black, which is a rarity in Maine, and partly because of the fact that she always had children hanging off her. She had a big family with several daughters who had babies. These daughters were going to school, too, and brought their babies with them. Gaye often had one in tow while one daughter or another was in class. They had great names like Divante and Nahisi, with black curly hair and big smiles. They were the best natured babies I have ever seen, as well as the the most adorable. Everyone loved them and helped take care of them. It was far from unusual to find one in a baby seat on the printing press or tucked under somebody's chair in art history class. During the student critiques of our work, one or two of them would be playing quietly nearby.

Anyway, when she was here last I was struck by the way she looked with the sun shining in the window on her face. I took pictures of her so that I could paint her, and this is the first one. It's a pastel, which I haven't done in awhile. I thought it would be fun to get the contrast of light and dark using pastels, and it was. The portrait looks very little like Gaye, who is probably in her late 60's. This person looks quite young. I didn't want to labor over getting a likeness. This is all about the light. In a different medium that is more easily manipulated I may try to make it look more like she actually looks, which is really quite stunning.

This is Christmas Eve. It's the first time in years that Sydney didn't have her usual dinner party, which left a lot of us twiddling our thumbs. David, Thom, and I had breakfast this morning together with Meg. who hosted the occasion even though it was at their house. Meg doesn't have people to her house because she doesn't want anybody to see what a mess it is. It was very enjoyable, as is any occasion when Meg is there. She is in her eighties and quite frail, but is wonderful company. She has had a very interesting life, and actually still does. She will be off to Los Angeles for a few months in a couple of weeks. Like Gaye, and actually so many people in my life, she is an unusual character. Our breakfast lasted until after noon, a fitting Christmas party. I haven't decorated at all, but I spent time making gifts for David and Thom. Mike will be at Christmas dinner at their house tomorrow......a kind of last hurrah since he is moving back to Florida after only a couple of months here. This place at the end of the earth isn't everyone's cup of tea, and he just doesn't like it. I am sad that it didn't work out because we both have been planning and anticipating his retirement here for years. Despite the expense, which has been considerable, he is wise to realize that he's made a mistake though, and take steps to rectify it. It's a disappointment to us both, but it's the right thing for him to do. This will be our only Christmas together for awhile.

New Coat

2011-12-22T17:53:00.000-05:00

Here is Lytton wearing the expensive coat I bought for him that is guaranteed to reduce stress in dogs. It's called a "Thundershirt." Well, I can't endorse it for stress, but it's cute and I'm sure keeps him warm.

Lytton

2011-12-10T13:05:00.000-05:00

Lytton spends a lot of time sleeping, and when he isn't sleeping, he is usually unhappy. It is too sad for words that he has become so incapacitated by arthritis and senility. The quality of his life is compromised (a good word for "sucks" or "horrible" or "devastating"), This is a topic I have not been able to write about, and still can't. Lately I have been talking about him with my old trusted vet in Bangor about the inevitable decision to put him to sleep (i.e. kill him). I'm not able to make that decision, so he is on pain medication and anti-anxiety drugs to keep him comfortable. I wear ear plugs to bed so I can't hear him barking, though I still hear him. There are times he will bark for hours at a time, at nothing. There is nothing I can say to describe how difficult the situation is for both of us.

New Chicken Escape

2011-12-10T12:47:00.000-05:00

Every day I re-do the gate and fences of the chicken house, along with piling countless pieces of wood and wire on the roof of the house to prevent jumping over the fence. Almost every day at least one chicken escapes. Recently the pace has accelerated. Two days ago it was two chickens, yesterday it was four. In this picture the girls are camouflaged in the dead grass on the far side of the building that sits between my back yard and Diana's. They are feasting on the countless apples on the ground under her tree. These new escapees are unaware, apparently, that they are doing anything wrong and don't run away from me like Penny does. This makes it more difficult to get them back into the pen. Even though they will follow me if I call them, they tend to get sidetracked. To expedite things, I resort to picking them up, one by one, and carrying them back where they belong.

The dogs have escaped lately, too. I have had to chase Patrick and Benny all over the neighborhood
several times, worrying all the while that they will encounter an escaped chicken. Yesterday one of the horses at the shelter escaped when I was putting hay in his paddock, and it took me over a half hour to catch him. Horses react much like chickens, ignoring you until you are about to grab them, and then racing away. Dogs, on the other hand, prefer to taunt you.......racing up to you happily and then darting away, hiding and then reappearing........generally making a game out of the chase. Some days the things that take up my life seem quite comical.

New Statue

2011-12-10T12:21:00.000-05:00

This is the new statue installed downtown last week-end. Somehow I ignored the events that lead to its presence so have no idea what led up to it. It had to do with some funding for art installations, and I know there was controversy over the design. I remember something about a proposal being rejected because of the breasts on a mermaid............in any case, thank goodness for the prudishness of the city fathers. What Eastport does not need is yet another mermaid, with or without breasts. Sometimes I think I will throw up if I see another fish-tailed call-girl wearing a simpy smile. Well, I digress. I love this sculpture, criticized by some as being too modern for Eastport. However it was chosen, I have to applaud it. What makes a place modern or not modern is its aura, its atmosphere, its timeliness. Perhaps Eastport looked more old-fashioned and quaint before the statue was here. But the statue doesn't replace the old, it just ads to it. It shows that Eastport is alive now, too, in the present, building on the past but not stuck in it.

The last attempt at modernity in the art realm has been dismantled and hidden away somewhere. It stood across from the post office wearing a 60's style pop-art face. I didn't mind it, but I didn't like it either.......it looked like the city was trying too hard to look "cool." This new one is a class act.

First Snow of the Year and Kennedy

2011-11-23T15:29:00.000-05:00

Every year I take a picture of the first snow, the long dreaded onset of winter. Then every year I realize it's not as bad as I anticipated. This is actually the 66th winter I have lived through (I assume I will live through it) and none of them have been very different from all the others. The only one that stands out is 1962 when a freak snowstorm in Bangor stranded hundreds of people, including my father who was half way home from work. He left his car in the middle of the street and walked home. By the next morning our porch, which went the length of the front of the house, filled with snow up to its roof. We couldn't open the door and had to climb through the second story window to get out. We saw a news story about the storm on national television. It showed people skiing down Central Street. Cars were buried so deep that you couldn't tell where they were. Shelters were set up all over town for people who couldn't get home. On our street I remember the neighbors digging out, helping one another, laughing and joking with people they had never spoken to before. There was a wonderful spirit of camaraderie I hadn't seen before, or since for that matter. The sun was so bright the morning after...

Speaking of the 60's, yesterday was the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. The event was played and replayed on television, and I watched it for awhile. But I Lived through it and remember it all vividly. I can put myself back at the formica kitchen table across from my mother, just finishing lunch. The phone rang and Mike answered it. It was his friend Jack telling him the president had been shot. For a split second we thought it was a prank because the television, perched on top of the refrigerator, was on and nothing had been said. Hardly was the thought formed when Walter Cronkite appeared on the screen. "We interrupt this program........"

For the next several days, I sat in the recliner hauled up in front of the TV, my eyes riveted to the screen. I saw Oswald shot as it happened. I saw the funeral, the cortege, the eternal flme. Jackie's black horse nervously bucking as he was lead behind the coffin, boots backward in the stirrups of his empty saddle. John-John's salute, Caroline kneeling, Jackie in her black veil. Every detail is burned into my memory. And then I watched it all over and over and over. It was the first election I had taken an interest in. I loved Kennedy, had even gone to see him speak. I still have the poster I carried, the plastic hat I wore. I watched him boldly stride into his headquarters after he won the nomination, a big grin on his face, the band playing a premature "Hail to the Chief." Even now I get goosebumps when I think of it, and tears well up in my eyes.

Then came Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Everything turned sour.

Chickens on the Roof

2011-11-18T13:51:00.000-05:00

I took these pictures through the dining room window. At times there can be four or five chickens outside the window at the same time, often seemingly confused that they can't get at the plants. I have tried repeatedly to figure out how to keep Penny from flying from the roof over the gate and out into the driveway. She has made a nest under the bay window out front and can't wait to get out there to lay her eggs. She can't be kept in, and won't believe me when I tell her that she is in great peril. I think she's the only one who is laying at this point. I put a lovely delux nest in the chicken house, but so far no one has gone near it. When there are any eggs in the morning, they are on the floor in front of the door, or out in the front garden. All of my attempts to block her path have so far been miserable failures.

Toni's New Dog

2011-11-18T13:38:00.000-05:00

This is Sasha, Toni's new companion. The two of us drove to the animal shelter Tuesday to pick her up and she made herself right at home immediately. At first everything seemed to be going fine between Sasha and Toby (the other dog), but I here today the two have begun to stake out their territory. Evidently Toby is losing the battle. We could tell immediately that Sasha is an alpha dog, so what happens in the future between them could be a problem for Toni. Time will tell.......

Origami Flowers

2011-11-18T13:31:00.000-05:00

After weeks of doing origami , I finally had to settle for a relatively simple project in order to reward myself. These are flowers made of tissue paper that actually look pretty good. I foud that tissue paper can be ironed very successfully....a useful tool when you make countless mistakes in folding creases. The iron pretty much removes anything so that the finished product looks somewhat better than a used handkerchief. I'm not sure if I will be satisfied with having these be my ultimate origami creations. I doubt it, and I am certainly not putting my books away.

The Painting I tried to post earlier....

2011-11-08T20:50:00.000-05:00

4:30 in November

2011-11-08T20:41:00.000-05:00

New Painting

2011-10-24T16:45:00.002-04:00

In order to murder my origami obsession, I made myself go into the studio and paint. I set up this still life yesterday afternoon and after some consideration decided to do it in watercolor. The first session worked out all right except for one area. Rather than let it go, I left it until today when I could see it with a fresh eye. What I saw was pretty much a mess. Too many layers of paint with opacity watercolor was never meant to have. The color was bad, too. I had read yesterday in a magazine about erasing watercolor, so I went to work on it with a big eraser. The result was only marginally successful, but it made me remember the "Magic Eraser" I have used so much in the kitchen.. The thing will remove anything. So was the case with the watercolor. I was able to wash off quite a lot of paint, leaving a sort of ghost. Then I went back into it with transparent layers of pure pigments.The underlying paint gives it a soft, three-dimensional look that watercolor usually lacks. I ended up being happy with it and glad that I went to the trouble to work on it.

Origami

2011-10-15T10:10:00.000-04:00

Since I can't do much of anything with my sore shoulders, I have taken up origami. It requires a lot of concentration and no shoulder movement. These are some bugs I managed to bring to a respectable conclusion, but I must say, origami is not child's play. I was hoping to be able to make fabulous, complicated figures, but I now realize how difficult it is. I optimistically ordered three books on the subject, along with some paper. Fortunately one of them is at a pretty basic level, though I can tell you that going beyond a paper airplane is a tremendous challenge. Luckily I have a lot of stubborness and time on my hands. If my interest holds as long as my shoulders ground me, I will conquer it.

The new part-time Emma

2011-09-30T18:44:00.000-04:00

I've been having trouble with my eyes lately....that is I haven't been able to see well.....so after several trips to my new eye doctor I ended up getting glasses. I am still able to wear my contacts, but am supposed to rest my eyes part of the time. So here is a version of me if I had been born with bigger eyes. I look like somebody I know, but I can't think of who. When I see pictures of myself smiling like this, I wonder if I ought to have had my teeth fixed when I was young. It's so un-American to have ugly teeth. Somehow it didn't bother me unless I was going to the dentist. Then I was embarrassed. Gradually I have given up going to the dentist for that reason, not wanting to expose my ugly teeth or most-likely bad breath to a captive hygienist. My teeth are servicable and healthy, just not pretty.

Anyway, the point of the picture is the glasses. I can now see my fingernails through the bifocal part of the lenses and I spend a fair amount of time examining them. They are uncared for as they have always been. The cuticles are securely glued to the outside edges of the nails, never having been pushed back or cut. They are haphazzardly trimmed with nail clippers to various lengths. Most have dirt of obscure origin under them and are snagged at the edges. I'm not saying that they would be any different if I had been able to see them all these years......like teeth, they serve a function. For some reason I never had any interest in making them pretty (if there is such a thing as a pretty nail). Nevertheless, I find it entertaining to look at them now, just as I find my eyes that look in slightly different directions interesting to observe. My second toes are longer than my big toes, too, and misshapen with all the years of trying to shrink inside normally shaped shoes. The back of my head is flat. My lips are thin. I'm much too short. By normal standards I am a mass of defective parts, usually considered unnattractive. Somehow it all seems to work, though, as a whole. I don't mind the way I look.

New Couch

2011-09-05T11:55:00.000-04:00

I meant to publish this earlier but didn't get to it........this is my new couch for the living room. I picked it for it's style and price, as well as it's color which is dog-friendly, the color of dirt.

Chickens on the Roof and Car Accident.

2011-09-05T11:47:00.000-04:00

The roof of the chicken house is right outside my dining room window and I regularly see the girls looking at me through the glass. It's a good substitute for having birdfeeders out there as I did in the past.

I have been busy lately with company and dealing with my latest legal battle, but three days ago I had a terrible incident happen. I struck a girl as I was driving through Pleasant Point on my way back from Bangor. She was hurt bad enough to be taken to Bangor by ambulance, and apparently had surgery. She's home now and pretty much recovered. Although no one blames me for the accident (the girl ran out into the road without looking to see her friends across the street), I was quite shaken by it all. The girl lay on the road with people screaming and crying all around her. Cell phones were at every ear calling the police and ambulance. I was treated with kindness by everyone involved and the policeman who handled the case called me the next day to make sure I was all right. Ever since it happened, though, I keep seeing that blurr of the girl appearing directly in front of me and hearing the sound of the thud when the car hit her. I swerved to avoid her, but there was no time to stop it from happening.

Word spreads quickly in a town like this and I am considerably comforted by the concern people have shown me. Nevertheless, it is certainly something I will never be able to completely put it behind me.

2011-08-19T19:28:00.002-04:00

[Image] I have taken the trouble this year to keep my feeders full and the birds have rewarded me by regularly visiting at the dining room window. I love to watch them while I have my coffee in the morning and they never fail to amuse. I wonder what it is about birds that people like so much, and why some birds are favored over others? I like any bird, but there are lots of people who may love one species and hate another. I suppose it makes as much sense as liking white people better than black, or Asians better than Hispanics, etc. Small variations in appearance and habits supersede the fact of being part of the same species.[Image]

Three Cousins

2011-08-09T19:28:00.000-04:00

This is my cousin Beth and I with the cousin she found on the internet when searching our family history. He and his wife came here on their way to Canada from Virginia in order to meet us. His resemblance to other male relatives is absolutely astounding. For awhile when I first met him I was so distracted by this that I could hardly concentrate on what he was saying. It was fun to meet them.

I am always amazed when I look at pictures of myself to see how short I am.

Boat Ride

2011-08-08T18:25:00.000-04:00

My cousin Beth and her husband John have been visiting for the last several days. Beth and I took the ferry to Lubec and this picture shows Eastport as we pulled away from the breakwater. Although it was only overcast when we left, it started to rain when we got to Lubec and continued to get worse as the afternoon went on. The trip back was in a downpour. We huddled in the one small sheltered area of the boat and enjoyed the trip anyway. Beth will send me more pictures to post after she gets home and I will have better documentation of the visit, which was really fun.

Where has Emma Gone?

2011-07-27T18:04:00.000-04:00

Well, for one thing I have been working on this mural for the FLFES Open House. It is to be a backdrop for pictures taken of children on our new donkey. I have also been busy with the chicken fence and a lot of other household projects that have kept me from writing. Now that I have pretty much come to the end of all of my busy work. I hope to get back to posting. More to come in the near future.......

Graduation Day

2011-06-29T19:28:00.000-04:00

This is almost the first moment the chickens went into their grown-up home. I have a lot of anxiety over this, and fear it is a death sentence for them, but it had to happen. If I am to have chickens, I obviously have to allow them to leave the nest, so to speak. I bought a latch for the door that I think would foil the smartest raccoon, though I have thought that before and been tragically wrong.

These are the friendliest chickens I have had. They have no fear of me, and in fact run over to me in greeting whenever I come toward them. They take food from my hand and almost crawl into my lap when I sit near them. I am hoping against hope that I will be able to protect them.........

I forgot if I have mentioned their names: Henny, Penny, Polka, Dot, Blackie and Bonny.

Garden

2011-06-26T10:01:00.000-04:00

Despite the fact that this has been and unbearable cold Spring, the garden is in its glory. I love to look at it, and the fact that I created it makes the experience all the better.

I hung the peace flag out last week with some trepidation. The summer people who live next door had a flag like this last year and someone stole it. Stealing is rare in Eastport, but I'm sure some patriotic zealot thought it was offensive. Does a patriot also have to support everything the government does? And if so, where is the freedom and democracy we are supposed to cherish?

Benny and Patrick

2011-06-17T20:20:00.000-04:00

A very unusual sight..............these boys NEVER share a bed.

The Garden

2011-06-12T09:45:00.000-04:00

I haven't put anything new in the garden this year. The plants are maturing now and unless I take something out, there really isn't room. It is definitely the greatest improvement I have made since I moved here, It's beautiful..........

Twilight

2011-06-10T19:05:00.000-04:00

I couldn't help but show off by posting this picture of me riding Twilight, one of the shelter horses. I'm pretty cool, huh?

Orchid Cactus

2011-06-10T19:01:00.000-04:00

I can't believe I've had this plant since Jesse was a baby (now he's 36). It used to bloom regularly, and then it didn't for about 20 years. Now here it is in it's second childhood.

Growing Girls

2011-06-10T18:53:00.000-04:00

The babies are getting big so fast that they seem to change every day. They have lost most of their down and feathers are sprouting. I still haven't given them names, but I do have a favorite, one of the black ones. It's because she seems to be responsive to my voice and looks up at me when I talk to them. Mostly they worry that I might pick them up. All of them are very healthy, and have been right from the beginning. Already I'm worrying about putting them out in the coop. They are so vulnerable, and their fate is in my hands.

Painting Outside

2011-06-05T18:22:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I went outdoors to paint, but I have been thinking about it for quite awhile. Sometimes at odd moments, I think of the years I painted outside with Thelma and Betty Lou . I guess it's the season. I've written so many times of how much those times meant to me that I won't reiterate, but I am planning a book on the subject. I have compiled all of my Rockport paintings and put them in a special file on a book making site. I'm going to write about each painting, taking some of my old journal entries as text, as well as thoughts about them that I have now. I think it will be a good way to relive, re-examine, and organize my thoughts.

So today I packed up my stuff and went down to the bottom of the hill to paint what I saw looking back up the hill. I've done the same scene before with limited success. The one I did today is also far short of wonderful, but I am still pleased with it. I think it's pretty good for the first attempt in so long. Of course the whole experience is so different, so much less intense, than the past. I will never have that again. But I thought there might be some way of resurrecting some part of it. I'm not sure there is.

New Chicken Family

2011-05-28T16:46:00.000-04:00

So, here we go again. I meant to get three chicks, but what could I do when I saw them? There are two each of three different kinds......Rhode Island reds, Bard(or Barred?) Rocks, and Black something or others. I didn't get the name, but they are so cute. I found my heat lamp, but the other baby chick stuff had disappeared. I had to get a new waterer and feeder, but both of the new ones are better than those I had before. All of them seem healthy and are eating and drinking well. They are four days old today.

I am trying not to imagine their possible future. I've had bad luck, no matter what I do to protect them. I have about a month to prepare the Fort Knox of chicken pens and I intend to do my best. They have no names yet, but I'll watch their personalities develop and name them accordingly. I'm glad to have them.

The Garden

2011-05-25T18:53:00.000-04:00

It wouldn't be Spring if I didn't post pictures from my garden. The tulips have nearly gone by but are still beautiful as always. The bleeding heart was new last year and is doing really well. Most everything else is up and flourishing, and no wonder. We have had rain almost every day this month. Today was the first sunny day in recent memory. I haven't wanted to be out weeding and working in the garden because it has been so wet. One wonders why, though, since I am out at the farm every day, rain or shine, sloshing in mud up over my boots, shoveling manure. I come home soaked to the skin and stinking to high heaven, exhausted.

Well, I guess we all have our prorities.

Spring, So to Speak

2011-05-21T19:57:00.000-04:00

I took these pictures on the way back from the farm the other day. Suddenly everything had turned green. So far, though, it has been very rainy and cold for the most part. Thom told me that it has rained 18 days out of this month so far. So this day was unusually beautiful and warm.

I have been working at the farm every day, which keeps me very busy. I love being there, but there are times when I feel like I have no time for anything else. It's not really true, and I think the main reason i am feeling pressed is the weather. I haven't been able to do the things outside that I need to do. The garden, the dog pen, and the chicken pen all need to be worked on. Even though I shovel manure, throw hay, fill water buckets, etc. in the pouring rain, somehow I feel like staying inside when I'm home. I'm still working in my studio, but since I finished doing my faces I really don't have any real project going. I ought to be getting the things I already have done ready to exhibit, but that is a part of doing artwork that I find endlessly tedious. I hate to do it. Since I rejoined the gallery this year I need to get stuff done, though........and quickly. The gallery opens very soon (I don't know exactly when). In fact there was a meeting today which I did not attend. I'm hoping that if I stay out of the business of running things I will be okay. Since that is the case, I wonder why I rejoined. I really wonder why I did........

Here They Are

2011-05-09T19:16:00.000-04:00

These are all my faces from the obituaries. The flash has made the color lighter in the center, but certainly this is about what it looks like. The piece is about 22x30. The size was determined by the piece of foam core I found and could afford at Walmart. Once I had it, my desire to go on and on disappeared. I had my eye on the end, and worked toward it. I will have to re-arrange the pieces somewhat because I want no white showing between them. Since they are not exactly equal in size, they have to be arranged to compensate. Otherwise, though, I want a feeling of total randomness......though the "randomness" will actually be by design. I want no sequences, no discernible patterns by gender, age, or color. The difference in color of the individual portraits is an unexpected variation I didn't plan for. I expected to have them all simply black and white. But since I do not use black paint, every time I mixed a black out of red, yellow, and blue it came out different. That's the advantage of mixing black rather than using commercially mixed black, which is dull and too consistent. I thought I would get it closer than I did, though. Now I'm glad I didn't.

On a much sadder note, all three of my chickens were killed by a predator last week. I was stunned and devastated. For a few days I thought in my grief that I would not get more.....end that part of my life. But as I began to recover, I was less convinced, and then on my way to Calais found myself stopping at the feed store to see if they were going to get baby chicks. When the answer was yes, I ordered three. They will arrive in about a month. Having chickens is part of my identity, my idea of myself. I'm not ready to make a change, I guess. So while I wait I will try to prepare a better fortress for my new babies. So far I have obviously not been able to keep danger away, no matter how I try. But I will try again...

Progress with my art project

2011-04-23T20:05:00.004-04:00

It's not that I haven't been doing anything, but I find it difficult to sit down and write. I spend so much time doing my faces that all my spare time is taken up. I have tried to force myself to get interested in something else, but I can't seem to do it. I worry that I won't be able to think of another project, so I keep going and trust that when the time is right, I will feel that this is done. I photographed some of the pieces and put them on the computer so that I can tell what they look will look like. I didn't know if I wanted to leave white boarders around them or not. I can see that I like them up against each other, which was my original idea. I have almost 100 of these now............

Auction

2011-04-11T13:11:00.002-04:00

The shelter is having a benefit auction and I did this as my contribution. I'm very pleased with it and hope the shelter makes lots of money on it. It was all I could do to pull myself away from my faces. At this point I have done 53 obituary faces, after 28 Szondi faces. I'm still going strong and have no inclination to quit. I wonder what drives me, but I don't question it too much. Eventually it will come to me.

Just One Day

2011-04-10T19:02:00.001-04:00

What I've been doing

2011-04-02T17:54:00.002-04:00

I continue to be enthralled with doing faces, although I've done a few other things, too. Everyday I scan the obituaries in the newspaper looking for faces that appeal to me for some reason or other. My criteria is usually the birth date and how interesting I think the rendering will be. As I look at these images I feel as if I get to know them, imagining their lives and their deaths. I don't seem to react emotionally to them, but contemplate the fact of death and its consequences. Once in awhile I think of the family, the person who chose the picture for the obituary. All of the dead are smiling, which I guess is the way they want their relative to be presented to the world no matter what their life was like.

Chicken Treat

2011-03-30T18:55:00.002-04:00

I have been letting the chickens outside for a couple of weeks now. The weather has turned warm enough to melt the snow, though it's still cold. The girls don't mind, and I'm sure they are glad to get out after the long winter in the coop. Recently I opened their door to let them out, and Lupine noticed that I had a cookie in my hand. She jumped up and grabbed it before I knew what was happening. ran away and devoured it. I've been giving her little bites every day since then. So yesterday I took my camera so I could catch her in the act. These are maple cookies, which I doubt is a staple in any chicken's diet, but Lupine certainly knew what she wanted. Whenever I go into the yard she jumps all over me. I feel bad if I don't have anything for her, and when the cookies were gone I brought saltines. They all used to love them, but it took some coaxing to get Lupine to even look at the crackers. Even then, she didn't eat them until she was sure no cookies were forthcoming.

Ah, Spring

2011-03-07T09:56:00.001-05:00

It's a familiar March sight........melting snow running down Clark St. No matter how long the winter seems as it's going on, it always seems to end suddenly and unexpectedly. The ugliness of dirty snow, muddy water and pelting rain is met with enthusiasm and celebration. The huge drifts and freezing temperatures evaporate from our minds. The slippery roads and white-out weather conditions are forgotten. Last night my hands did not become stiff with cold as I worked at the computer, yet I didn't notice. As if the endless days of early dark, wind chill factors, and plans made with the admonition "depending on the weather" are already remote memories. The world changes so dramatically here, but we who live it year after year have adapted to it so well that each season exists only in the present. Winter disappears into Spring, Spring into Summer, Summer into Fall, and Winter comes again. We sit on the deck with cooling drinks, wearing shorts and T-shirts, well into the balmy evenings, then pull our light jackets out from the back of the closet, then our heavy coats, our hats, our gloves, and finally our boots. Now the Winter is dying and with amazing amnesia it will be forgotten. If we talk about it at all, it will only be to contrast it with the present, without emotion.

Adapting so readily to the extremes of the seasons here gives us a subtle appreciation of the cycles within cycles within cycles that constitute our lifetime. They measure our time here in a way that milder and less changeable climates do not. I've always thought that people who live in relatively consistent climates are much more relaxed about time. There's always tomorrow, they think. We can't count on tomorrow being like today. Better do it now.........

Two more....

2011-03-06T17:26:00.001-05:00

It's strange to see this bottom image so big...it's actually only about 1 1/2 inches high. I liked doing my Szondi faces so much that I wanted to do another series. It occurred to me that the obituary pictures in the paper look a lot like the faces I've just finished, so I decided to use those as subjects. I did three, thinking at first I would do them a little differently. I used gouache on top of the image to ad a different dimension, but it turned out I didn't like the look. I went back to my old method with the third one and trashed the other two. Today I did the picture of the ballerinas......the entire picture I cut out of the newspaper instead of just the one figure I did before. This is small, too, about 4 x 6 inches. When will this cease to amuse me?

New Beds

2011-03-06T16:40:00.000-05:00

These dog beds were a great deal at the dollar store, so I replaced the beds the dogs have ripped to pieces. Benny and Lytton really like theirs but Patrick isn't so sure.......

Other Work

2011-02-28T19:11:00.000-05:00

Off and on I've given myself a break from the Szondi portraits and fooled around with other subjects. I see that it's hard to see the bottom one......it's very small, around 3x4 inches. The top one is maybe 4x6, or a little bigger. This way of painting, or whatever you want to call it, is certainly giving me a lot of pleasure. I always did like value better than color.

Progress

2011-02-28T18:55:00.000-05:00

I think I'm done, but what a fun project.

Spring in the Living Room

2011-02-20T19:57:00.000-05:00

I've had this potted orange tree for at least twenty years and it has never produced fruit until now. There are several marble-sized oranges appearing all over it. Go figure............

My New Project

2011-02-20T19:52:00.000-05:00

I don't know where I'm going with this, but I'm certainly enjoying making all these little portraits. Each one is about two inches square. I plan to combine them in some bigger work after I get sick of doing them individually. I'm waiting for some idea to crystallize from studying these faces and thinking about how I came to know them. When I was quite young, under ten, my father gave me the Zondi test for the first time. It consisted of looking at groups of around ten pictures and selecting which you liked the best and which you liked the least. I don't remember how many sets there were. The examiner then interpreted your choices in terms of personality traits. The photos are of mental patients, and Zondi, a psychiatrist, was testing his theory that mental illness had some type of genetic basis that caused people to respond in certain ways to the pictures. I can't remember the details, and considering how hard it was to find any information about the test, apparently it never gained much acceptance. My father was a psychologist and entertained us children with all kinds of tests. We were happy to be guinea pigs. I can still see Rorschach (I don't know how it's spelled) ink blots if I close my eyes........

I've thought about the people in theses pictures off and on over my life and finally decided to look them up. It's amazing that I recognize every one of the faces and remember looking at them laid out on the Formica table top in the kitchen of our house in the 50's. I can't remember which ones I liked or didn't like, but they are all familiar. As I draw them, I feel as if I am re-creating them somehow, adjusting them a little. Once I have examined every aspect of their faces, once I have come to understand every turn of their lip, every glint in their eye, every stray hair, every convoluted twist and turn of their ear....I find that I can't chose any of them to dislike. They've become my children.

Three Paintings

2011-02-14T22:07:00.000-05:00

These are all small works done on Yupo paper with water soluble oils.I guess that after putting so much "concept" into my last paintings, I wanted to relax and do some straight images. Every time I mix the paint, I get a different color, which gives them all a different look, but I love using values alone. Somehow color trivializes these little pictures.......or monochrome makes them seem more than they are. I'm not sure which it is, but the way light creates form is always the most interesting part of a painting for me, and color distracts from that. The technique is intriguing, too. Covering the paper entirely with a flat dark value and then picking out the light is fascinating. My brush is a Q-tip that simply wipes away the dark to reveal the subject.

My View

2011-02-10T19:19:00.000-05:00

Here's what I see as I look out the window from my chair at the dining room window. As I was walking the dogs this morning, going down the hill to toward the water, I remembered what it was like when I first moved here thirteen years ago. The thought that edged its way into my consciousness was to feel nostalgic about the time when all this was new. Every day was a delight. I basked in the idea of living by the ocean. Everything about the town fascinated me......its smallness, its quaintness (as I perceived it then), it's lack of pretension. The sight of fishing boats at the breakwater was strange and wonderful, as well as the huge tankers that dominated Water St when they docked to unload their cargo. I didn't know many people and I enjoyed my solitude. I could always feel my own edges as I wandered around the streets. There was me, and then there was "everyone else," a vague presence I had little to do with. ing is Like being a tourist in an unfamiliar place, you carry yourself and nothing else.

As I started to regret that I had lost that newness and wonder, I realized that I really have not lost it. I still look at this place as an outsider. It is probably why I have had no desire to leave. I still don't know it very well. So far I have managed to stay ignorant of anything but it's surface. I've learned nothing to contradict my solitary view, nothing to tarnish that wonderful ignorance.

More Snow

2011-02-02T18:09:00.000-05:00

The top picture shows what greeted me as I opened the back door this morning. The bottom one is a closer look at the drift that goes down the middle of the dog yard. It's amazing what the wind does with snow, especially in tight spaces. I have to say this is the best one I've seen.

In the background you can see the snow pile behind my car........worse than the last one. The whole country is having record snowfall. Most places are paralyzed because they don't have the experience or equipment to handle this kind of weather. The paper is full of articles showing pictures of stranded vehicles, impassable roads, downed electrical poles, people in shelters, businesses closed. Here in Maine, as one writer put it, we call it "winter."

Two Versions

2011-01-30T16:33:00.000-05:00

Looking at these now, I sort of wish I had kept the first one, but I didn't. Somehow I didn't like it with only the shells, despite the fact that I spent several days painting them. After I forged ahead with the Fibonacci curve, there was no turning back. When I added the figures I obscured the meaning behind the painting, which is probably just as well, and I still have a satisfactory realistic image. The lower part of the painting doesn't show up in this picture as much as it actually does, but you get the idea.

The Day After

2011-01-28T16:50:00.000-05:00

January in Maine.....

2011-01-27T09:51:00.001-05:00

Dead Chicken

2011-01-25T12:07:00.002-05:00

When I went out to check the chickens this morning only three came running to meet me. For a horrible moment I thought I might have closed one of them outside somehow. We have had sub-zero temperatures for several days now and I was afraid she somehow slipped past me, got outside, and froze to death. I climbed inside the coop, which isn't high enough for me to stand up in, and saw her on the floor behind the feed dish, obviously dead for a while since she was frozen to the floor. I picked her up, praying that she wouldn't be so frozen that she would come apart. I had to unstick her head and tail from the floor, but she did remain intact.

In tears, I wrapped her in plastic and put her in a box, then in the cellar to wait for trash day. I will never get used to this........

Bad Idea

2011-01-22T18:04:00.000-05:00

This is my Indian flute, hand made by a craftsman in New Mexico. I've treasured it for many years. I like the fact that it's the only instrument I can play without sheet music in front of me. I was told that you play this just by letting your mind go, let your feelings be reflected naturally in the notes you make. I was totally skeptical, yet I can actually do it. A few days ago I decided to see if the tone of it would be better if I warmed it up, since the house is so cold. I wrapped it in a dish towel and put it on one of the floor registers in the kitchen. I forgot about it until this morning, when I saw the towel in the middle of the floor. The flute was nearby, the carved bird that had been attached to it was broken off, and looking closer I saw that the tail of the bird had been chewed.

As long as I have had dogs, one has to wonder why I didn't think about such an eventuality when I put such a valuable thing made of wood on the floor. If I thought anything, I suppose I thought the towel would protect it, though I really didn't think at all. Luckily the damage doesn't affect the playability of the flute, but its aesthetic quality has certainly been compromised. Whenever something like this happens, as when I have lost contact lenses and hearing aids as well as a multitude of less expensive objects to the exuberance of animals, it reminds me of the value, or lack of value, of the "things" that surround us. Dogs, who don't know or care about the difference between a hand-carved flute and a stick that fell off the nearest tree, show us how to keep our belongings in perspective.

Fashion Plate

2011-01-22T17:31:00.000-05:00

My mother would roll over in her grave if she could see me in this outfit. I saw myself in the mirror as I started upstairs this morning and noticed the array of patterns I was wearing. I thought of all the years I was taught how to properly combine elements of dress and how much it has always influenced what I wore. Little by little I have discarded the rules I adhered to so vigilantly. Now I put on whatever is handy and warm without giving much thought to how I look. Sometimes I believe it is a not-so-unconscious way of rebelling against my mother. I hate to see myself in the kind of outfit she would have approved of, so it is either she or my former self that I try to defy. Whatever........

Playing with My New Toys

2011-01-18T17:56:00.001-05:00

Recently I splurged on a little printing press that works by pressure rather than rolling over the image. It came in the mail the other day. Then today I got some rubbery "easy cut" blocks from another art supply company. With no commitments, I set to work. The press works very well, much to my relief (no pun intended). The top print is made from a woodcut I did a few days ago while I was still fascinated with fetuses. The other one I did on the new block. It is yet another of my mother's dolls. This one was printed twice, hence the messy registration. Like many mistakes, it turned out to be more pleasing to me than the perfect ones. I didn't like the cuts I had made on the right side of the print, so I collaged a piece of paper over the area. That fixed the problem, and added a new dimension to the print. I used chine collee on the other one, too, in order to liven up and otherwise over cut block. I like that one, too.

...not to put too fine a point on it

2011-01-13T13:40:00.001-05:00

So here is the next piece of work......very quickly done yesterday on a piece of Yupo paper with my subtractive method. It's a direct statement that explains the painting so haltingly squeezed out of my unconscious mind over the last few weeks. What fun............and what comes next? I already know that Fibonacci and I are going for a wild ride......

Finished product

2011-01-13T13:29:00.000-05:00

Probably I would have been able to go on and on with this, but at some point it has to be called finished.

Evolution

2011-01-13T13:28:00.000-05:00

I've spent many days working on this. It's certainly derivative of what I used to do in school, but not exactly the same. My approach was the same, though. I put down whatever came into my head without thinking about why, obscuring each layer as I moved on. Usually by the time I am finished, I am able to find some theme, and this is no exception. The process is very absorbing, very interesting, to unlock pieces of information in the unconscious mind and let them float into consciousness without evaluating them. As I worked toward the visual part of the painting, I simply focused on the image I had made. This is another wholly absorbing activity. I spent days just working on the intricacies of the shells, thinking of nothing but their details. You would think I would have memorized them after staring at them for so many hours, but I know I haven't. If I should decide to go back and paint them again, I would see them in even more detail, and what was minuscule would be obvious. There would be more intricacies......

The Girls

2010-12-26T14:16:00.000-05:00

I haven't written about the girls lately. They are spending a lot of time inside because of the cold, but I let them out for awhile most days. The space seems too small and boring to spend the entire day there. Today they were out for a couple of hours, but when I visited them with their Christmas present of Special K they had retired to their house. Nevertheless, they were very happy with their treat and I left them rumaging around for every last flake. They have put on weight, either from lack of exercise or to stay warm over the winter, and are looking very handsome.

The Approach to Christmas

2010-12-21T19:25:00.000-05:00

Last night we decorated the Christmas Tree at David and Thom's. It was a very nice time and everything looks beautiful. I have not been there for the decorating before, and it was a big addition to my holiday. It was fun to be part of the preparations. Dylan thought so, too. He was very interested in the whole proceedings, watching obediently from the couch. He was quite obviously restraining himself a lot of the time with great difficulty, but he managed quite well. He's growing up. My poor boys were home by themselves without a decoration in sight. I will make them some special treats tomorrow, though, as a nod toward celebration for them. Truthfully, I don't think they will notice one way or the other.

I have been quite mindful of the religious aspect of Christmas this year and spent some time arranging the figures in the Nativity set. My therapist said it was an effort to make things "right," with the baby at the center of attention. Then she told me a story about her own son when he was a little boy. He had been told not to touch the nativity set, but he was very enthralled with it. He looked at it from a respectful distance for several days. Then he apparently couldn't stand it anymore. When his mother wasn't looking, he placed all of his toy Fisher-Price people in a semi-circle around the perimeter of the scene, at a respectful distance, without touching the figurines. She discovered them there later. The picture that conjures up in my head is absolutely delightful. It makes me smile just to imagine it.

First Snow

2010-12-06T17:12:00.000-05:00

It's beautiful.........need I say more?

Delia, and artwork

2010-12-04T10:20:00.000-05:00

This is Delia, the beautiful mare I rode for the first time last week. It was a thrill, a revisitation of the time when I had BJ, who looked a lot like Delia. I used my own old saddle to complete the experience. It seemed to pull me out of the doldrums I've been in since I got the letter from my ertswhile husband's lawyer.

On another note, four of my recent little paintings sold at the gallery opening last night. It will behoove me to take the money straight to the fuel company.

One More

2010-12-02T10:12:00.000-05:00

When I said that I had covered subject matter, I realized I hadn't done boats or water. Considering I live on the ocean, you'd think I mught have thought of that first. Anyway, here's the breakwater at night as I saw it from the ferry, coming back from the concert one summer night.

Vest

2010-11-30T13:38:00.000-05:00

For quite a few weeks I have been working on knitting this vest for myself (of course). I designed it myself, and looking at it you can tell how ambitious I was in the beginning. Starting at the bottom, I had big ideas of complex, challenging patterns. As time went on I just wanted to get it done. The patterns got less and less complicated, and in the end I didn't even want to knit anymore. I crocheted the edging just to give myself a break. The thing was really a make up as you go project. I had to adjust and adjust as I went, but I like how it turned out and it fits me. What else could I ask of any project?

Frenzy of Painting

2010-11-30T13:26:00.000-05:00

This is all my work over the last couple of days, trying out my new sort of monoprints but not monoprints. They are all small, around 3x5 or 7x6...whatever. Why I don't make these things standard sizes I'll never know. They would be easy to frame, and it really doesn't matter what size they are. Anyway, I pretty much covered the bases with subject matter, and with the last one, the nude, I tried incorporating color. Actually, to me there is nothing quite as nice as black and white. I'm a person who is in love with values. I'll need to increase the size now that I have the technique down so that I can be more complex. Finishing something in an hour or so doesn't really seem like much of an accomplishment.

New Version

2010-11-27T16:50:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me that I could use oil paint instead of watercolor on the Yupo paper and get darker values. I rolled the paper up and did this like a monoprint, which is just what it looks like. It's not the image I had in mind, but I couldn't find what I was looking for (naturally) and came across this. I did a very small etching of this in school, of which I am very proud, and I like this bigger version too. Continuing in my self-pitying vein, it's from a photo taken of me and my mother when I was 18 months old. I called it "Do Not Leave Child Unattended."

Thanksgiving Pies

2010-11-25T13:25:00.000-05:00

Armed with the experience of the lemon pie, I tackled mince pie for Thanksgiving. David made mincemeat using the green tomatoes left over from the garden. I made the pies separately just in case something went wrong with one of them, but both came out fine. I pinched a piece of crust off the edge of the less pretty one (on the right) to make sure it was up to standard, and declared the project a success. Just as the timer went off for the second pie, the phone rang. It was David saying that they had a holiday emergency.......their dryer had quit, leaving the linen tablecloth and napkins still wet. Now, moments later, they are swirling around in the heat of my dryer. What fun, and what a relief after recent events, to put everything else in the background. For one day at least, the worse that can happen is a wet tablecloth. We are ready, willing, and grateful to throw ourselves wholeheartedly into the celebration of a day, so I saw on TV the other night, that never really existed. How uniquely human...........we create a cerebral diversion for our cerebral troubles and step outside of the rest of the animal world for a moment.

Or at least we think we do. Dylan chasing his toys belies the fact that humans alone do things simply for the fun of it......

Speaking of animals, the chickens, who normally streak out the door the minute I open it and head for the far side of their pen to look for crumbs, noticed through the window as I approached that I was carrying a bag. When I opened the door, they surrounded me. Lilly, the brains of the flock, jumped up to investigate the bag while the others waited inches away for me to toss their Thanksgiving treats on the ground. Apples and cornbread......a chicken feast. Mine awaits down the street.

A Diversion

2010-11-23T10:30:00.000-05:00

Lemon Meringue Pie. I haven't made this for years, but David and Thom took me up on my offer to do it for one of our meals together. First, I couldn't fine my pie plates. I have used a cast iron pan in the past, so I substituted that. I had recently burned two different pans of muffins, so I was obsessed with the progress of the crust in the oven. I rescued it in time, though it still was done several minutes before it should have been. The oven is too hot, yet I can't figure out how to change that or accurately re-adjust the time. The filling was easy enough, though complicated and time-consuming. The meringue seemed to take forever. My mixer is to slow as my oven is to hot. Vigilence barely kept the meringue form burning, and voila!.....a masterpiece.

If only the taste had lived up to its beauty. I found it too sweet with a somewhat less than flaky crust. When I used to bake all the time, the results seemed much better. Making this pie would have been something I could do effortlessly. Of course I turned out three meals a day, 365 days a year, for many, many years. Perfecting recipes was my passion. I remember making batch after batch of doughnuts until I had the temperature perfect and the thickness of the dough just right. I cooked fudge constantly for two weeks trying to learn the precise moment to pour it into the pan after beating it "until it lost its gloss." Pork Chops were still juicy, roast beef was perfectly pink in the middle. Spaghetti (the word pasta became popular later) was al dente (also a recent word) and the homemade sauce had just the right spices. Bread was tall with a lovely light brown crust. My spanakopeta was legendary, as was my baklava. Arroz con Cerdo, empanadas, boef bourgignon, quiche, veal birds, ginger beef, lemongrass chicken soup, pad tai......all daily fare at our house. My three and five year old kids ate as easily with chopsticks as they did with forks and spoons.

Well, those days are gone, and with them my skill and desire to be a gourmet chef. Let me say, however, that ready-made meals in cardboard boxes and grocery store pastry are still far from acceptable. That leaves me with my diet of microwave popcorn and Klondike Bars.

Now Let's Belabor the Point

2010-11-22T14:20:00.000-05:00

If one is good, may as well over do it. This is from a photo of Phil, me and the kids when we lived in Newburgh (1974-1978!). I have used the same photograph many times in various pieces and it never fails to come through. The irony just reaches out and slaps you in the face if you know the story. I had fun with it, but how long will this continue to entertain me? Certainly I'll have to ad something to the technique to make it interesting.

Self Portrait with New Hat

2010-11-20T18:01:00.000-05:00

Here's an experiment with watercolor and ink on Yupo paper. After bombing at the last show at Lisa's gallery, I decided I may as well stop trying to compete with with so many other landscape painters and just forget about trying to please the buying public. How long will it last? There's no way of knowing. Sales are the measuring stick of success, and at one time I did fairly well at that. Now I don't. So I returned to my favorite subject, myself. It's the long-incubated child of the portrait I did years ago of David and Thom with Duncan.

I'm quite happy with it, and it has taken up my attention to a small degree, relegating my practical problems to a simmering cauldron in the background.

Take Two

2010-11-18T18:21:00.000-05:00

This is actually a batter picture of the painting....the color is more true to the real thing......

Long Time No See

2010-11-18T18:17:00.000-05:00

This is a little 5x7 acrylic done from a picture in the newspaper. It's the first painting I've done in awhile and I guess it suits my mood. Things have not been going well for me and I've been spending all my time worrying. My ex-husband has decided to try and have our divorce settlement altered, which would take away my entire income. I have tried to get legal help, but without money there's not much I can do. Free legal services do not involve themselves in family law. I have taken matters into my own hands and written to his lawyer. Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter.

I am completely amazed that anyone would take someone's entire income away, let alone the person I married. We were very compatible in many ways and had a nice life. We have two children together. I have (had) a great degree of fondness for him despite everything that drove us apart. I am shocked that he would even consider putting me in the position I would be in if I had no income.

Well, it turned out that I never really knew my husband even when we were married, though I thought I did. This is just one more surprise, one more facet of his personality that I didn't realize was there.

Meanwhile, I have learned that I will get almost no fuel assistance this winter. Also, my car is out of commission and I am therefore unable to go to the shelter (or anywhere else) to work with the horses.

This is my sob story. Ordinarily I wouldn't let Emma rant like this on her blog, but I couldn't seem to stop her.

Need to do a little housework?

2010-11-08T19:08:00.000-05:00

Yeah, it's pretty

2010-10-31T15:24:00.000-04:00

Here's another watercolor from the East Machias pictures. It doesn't have a lot of personality, but it's nice. It's small, with dollar signs all over it........

Another Watercolor

2010-10-29T18:34:00.000-04:00

In my usual Fall frenzy of moving things around I changed where my studio is. I swapped the guest room and the studio, which makes the studio very small. Nevertheless, I like the change. It's very bright and I can see the water out the window. The now guest room, however, is crammed with everything that won't fit elsewhere, including art related stuff not necessary for immediate use.

In honor of the move, I painted this watercolor of East Machias from a photo I took last week on the way back from Ann's. I think it almost has the look I am striving for. It's a little bigger than what I have been doing, and I think that helps me loosen up. I took other pictures of the same area, which is really pretty in that "small town America" way. I'm expecting great things of myself.

Shoes and Bread

2010-10-27T16:55:00.000-04:00

I like my new shoes with my colored socks.

I like my no-knead bread.

Cutler Watercolor

2010-10-13T20:21:00.000-04:00

I did this today at Sydney's from a photo I took while kayaking. It's interesting to take a regular daytime picture and turn it into a sunset with the photo editor.......I thought of this because of the yellow sky in the last watercolor I did. One thing I will say....that sky piece is the best wash I've ever done. Not a flaw in it.

Lytton Relaxing

2010-10-11T18:40:00.000-04:00

Lilac

2010-10-11T18:12:00.000-04:00

Poor Lilac is molting in a very unatttractive way. Poppy is starting to molt, too. Talk about ugly chickens.......

Najih

2010-10-07T20:14:00.000-04:00

I posted this on the FLES blog, but I had to put it here, too. What a gorgeous boy!

Turning Color

2010-10-07T20:12:00.000-04:00

On the way back from Harrington the other day I took a different route to avoid construction on rte 1. It gave me a chance to see the foliage, which is turning more colorful every day. I don't think this is going to be a particularly spectacular Fall, but each year has its own charm. Right now things are still subdued, which is more to my taste than when the leaves are outrageously brilliant. I was in Vermont for a week several years ago painting with Thelma and I swear my eyes hurt from the overwhelming color. I've never seen it like that in Maine and was certainly impressed. There's something about seeing the ultimate of anything that is a little sad. You know that from that point on other similar sights of the same thing will never be quite as good. I felt that way about Vermont. It was almost too much...

Pretty Good

2010-10-07T12:13:00.000-04:00

Of all the renditions of this image I've done, I think this Watercolor is the best. Maybe now I will leave it alone.

Living Room

2010-10-03T21:15:00.000-04:00

I re-arranged the living room again and here is a flattering picture of it. I can't count the incarnations of this room, or any other in any house I have lived. I don't know why I feel a recurring craving to rearrange things . I have always liked being in unfamiliar places, and perhaps this is my way of keeping my environment somewhat unfamiliar. I used to move every year or so to a different house, but my ability to do that is almost non-existent now. I have planted myself here with dogs and chickens and a garden. There is too much now that can't go with me. My options have shrunk almost to none. Once in awhile I think about going somewhere else, but it is a fleeting idea. I love my house and its location. I can have everything that is important to me. My landlady is more than any tenant could ask for. I have the freedom to treat this place as my own. It feels like my home in a way that no other place has.

The house where I lived when I was married and bringing up the kids was a wonderful big white house built in 1845. It was on a tree-lined street across form a huge park that was once a town common. The front doors were double, with etched glass, and the carved newel post in the front hall was mahogany, with a once gas fired chandelier hanging over it from the ceiling on the second floor. There was an oriental carpet on the stairs, and an upstairs hall as big as my living room is now. There was a pantry next to the kitchen with built in cupboards and drawers, and a little sink. One living room had a big bay window overlooking the park, and the room across the hall held our baby grand piano. The dining room looked out on a little fenced-in yard between the house and the garage, which was once a carriage house and had a cupola on the roof. We owned that house, but I always felt we were guardians of it rather than owners. It seemed a privilege to be there for a time, yet it seemed more permanent than our own lives.....a place where people came and went over the generations while it remained, unchanged. I loved it, and still do, but I was more a tenant there than I am here. Despite the fact that this house is almost as old as that one, this is a down to earth house in a down to earth town. This is where I am comfortable and happy.

Peace Lily

2010-10-03T20:42:00.000-04:00

I've had this plant for twenty years, and this is the first time it has blossomed. Go figure.