i always see such cool stuff in the woods

A few days ago I took advantage of the lasting good weather and went to the park to do a short hike.  Rock Cut touts itself as the largest state park in Illinois, and they must be right, because I’ve been going there to hike for about 7 years now and just last week found a new section of the park.  It was very cool as it appeared to contain an abandoned entrance and camping/picnic area complete with stone shelter house.

While I was wandering around on the new (at least to me) paths I came upon a young buck.  I must have been down wind, because he didn’t notice me until I was right on him, like maybe 3 feet away.  And we both froze.  I was wondering if he could gore me with his one and half  little antlers.  I don’t know what he was wondering, but we both just stood there staring at each other for a minute or so, and then I asked him, very politely if he wouldn’t mind moving so that I could go past.  And he did.  He moved off the trail a little ways but was still watching me. I don’t know, maybe he was in love.

Then a few days later I was jogging on the local bike path called the Stone Bridge Path when I noticed some birds nests that were filled with milk weed thistle.  So I stopped to take a closer look.  I was thinking perhaps that birds fill the nests before they go south in order to keep them intact for the winter.  So I poked my finger around in one and encountered something warm and soft but solid and alive.  My first thought was that’s weird, I didn’t know birds hibernate.  But when I pushed back the milk weed it turned out to be three hibernating mice.  Cool.  Although you would think I would have know that with all the years I spent as a Ranger Rick Club member.

autumn garden

I skipped painting in the basement yesterday and headed out to one of the local gardens instead.  I wanted to see if I could take “beautiful” garden photos at the tail end of fall.  I wondered if everything would look dead, or if there was still life in the garden after a couple of frosty nights.  I went to the Janesville Rotary Garden for my little photo experiment. It turned out quite well, so I may have to try this again in the dead of winter.

 

yesterday was one of those days

Yesterday was one of those days.  Not the bad kind.  The rare, memorable, beautiful kind.

I found my husband’s to do list on the kitchen table in the morning.  It had Take A Hike listed.  It was a perfect day for it, so we did.  I picked Devil’s Lake State Park about an hour and a half north in Wisconsin.  I had read on line that it had some challenging hikes with lots of rocks to climb for the Nutty.  It was amazingly beautiful from the moment we pulled in.  The colors were incredible, we must have managed to hit the park on the finest color day of Autumn.  The hike was pleasant, and Nutty (who’s sometimes prone to whining) enjoyed every step of it.  For him the highlight was the walk back along the lake where he got to climb on boulders to his heart’s content.  Little kids love to climb on boulders. We finished up the day with a decent mid-afternoon lunch at a local Baraboo joint.  Aah, perfection.

It was one of those days that you remember for the rest of your life.  That you are glad you got out of bed, put on your shoes and went for it.  That on your death bed you’ll be thinking to yourself, man am I glad I went hiking that day.

Perfect weather, perfect fall colors, perfect family to share it all.  Almost makes me teary eyed.

i know, i know, update already

What can I say, it’s cold.  When it’s cold I like to eat, sleep and be merry.  Typing just isn’t fun when your fingers are frozen.  Instead of updating, I made some kick ass potato soup the other night.  So good I had to give it away to a neighbor to avoid over eating for the rest of the week.  I had to do that with a fabulous apple pie recently too.  From what I hear, it was gone in a flash at J’s work.  Just like Cinderella’s carriage at midnight.  Get it?  That’s a pumpkin reference you know cause it’s Halloween and all.

Ok, even I have to admit none of that made any sense.  But a post is a post, so I’m leaving it there.

I added some new paintings, actually they are collages to the gallery.

Enjoy.

i’ve been working hard, really

I mean to update everyday, but don’t.  On the other hand, the good hand, I’ve been turning out paintings one right after the other.  Once I get the photographs cropped, I promise they will be one here.

I thought staying home would give me sooooo much time, and I would get bored.  But it hasn’t been the case.  I don’t feel like I’ve been wasting time, but maybe I have.  I am sure the cold weather will drive me inside more.

My goal for this week is to enter the two juried art shows I talked about earlier.   And to maybe find some more shows or art galleries in the Madison, Chicago, Milwaukee area.

it’s easier to say what I don’t do

I think about the answer to the question “what do you paint?” a lot.  Probably because I get asked this question a lot and have a hard time coming up with an on the spot answer.  And yet even though I think about it all the time, obsess about it even, I still can’t think of an adequate answer.

It might be easier to say what I don’t paint.  I don’t do portraits, landscapes or still life, at least not in the typical manner one might think of.  Neither am I an abstract expressionist, a realist or graphic artist.  And I don’t do “I” art.

“I” art.  Yuck.  The art that screams look at me and see how fucked up I am, isn’t that cool?  I can’t do this art.  I am amazingly not very fucked up for an artist.  I wasn’t abused, neglected or abandoned as a child.  I had a great childhood with a wonderful mother and full access to nature, fresh air and friends.  I have been poor, but never destitute.  I have on occasion been one or all of the following: tired, depressed, lonely and frustrated.  But no more so than any other person is in the compartmentalized world of technology we currently live in.  I am not a person of color, handicapped, homosexual or exploited.  So even if I wanted to (which I must stress I most assuredly do not want) I have nothing to make “I” art about.

I don’t make political art either.  I think political art is useless and egocentric, made more for the artist’s 15 minutes of fame than for any real expectation of change.  If I am interested in politics, I will take that interest to the voting booth or the soap box, but not to the canvas.  Of course much to my art sorrow, this is the kind of art that gets the most funding.

So what do I paint?  I asked myself again today while mountain biking on the trails at Rock Cut State Park.  And I decided that just for today, I am going to say I paint beauty and optimism and innocence.  I paint a love of nature, the remembrance of childish wonder and the blind trust that people will eventually (given enough chances) do the right thing.

Maybe there is just a little “I” art, political posturing in me after all.

Tied Fence Anderson Japanese Garden

things that fall

Mushrooms at Sinnissippi Park

The other day I was sitting in the park with all three of the boys eating a picnic lunch.  We had just had a great ride through the paths at the forest preserve to get there and were enjoying the sunlight and the turkey sandwiches.  A slight breeze came up and rustled the leaves on the oak trees around us.   Jack pointed to the trees and said “look the leaves are falling.”  We all took a moment to watch the leaves fall, yellow and spinning in the dappled sunlight.  Then Jack said “I like when the leaves fall”, and stole my heart all over again.

Because I too like when the leaves fall.  Autumn has always been my favorite time of year.  I love the “Halloween” winds that blow the leaves of trees.  I like to watch the leaves falling, floating, spinning down to earth.  I often stop whatever I am doing  just to watch.  Autumn also means that the Canadian Geese are flocking to fly South.  The great honking chains that pass over our house this time of year cause me to stop and watch in wonder too.

Which brings me to my soap box.  I take a lot of photos of nature.  I paint a lot of pictures with animals and plants in them.  Maybe it’s my Native American genes.  Maybe I am less removed (an eighth less at least) then my European- American counterparts from the wonders of nature.   Some of my ancestors only recently left the Great Plains for mobile homes after all.   I think what’s missing in far too many people’s lives these days is a connection with nature.    A real connection with dirt and insects and fungi and all things dirty and damp and alive and moving.  I’m lucky, dare I say blessed to have this connection, to truly feel respect and reverence for nature.

And I’ll admit it does make me feel special that my family can sit in the park together and watch the leaves fall in companionable silence

reel mower

When we are out driving, Jack likes to point out lawns that I would never be able to finish mowing with the reel mower.

potato story

I read this while eating lunch today. From the book Bluebeard’s Egg a collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood that I found for a dollar at the library charity book sale.

“While she was combing my next-to-impossible hair, winding it around her long index finger, yanking out the snarls, my mother used to read me stories. Most of them are still in the house somewhere, but one has vanished. It may have been a library book. It was about a little girl who was so poor she had only one potato left for her supper, and while she was roasting it the potato got up and ran away. There was the usual chase, but I can’t remember the ending: a significant lapse.

“That story was one of you favourites,” says my mother. She is probably still under the impression that I identified with the little girl, with her hunger and sense of loss; whereas in reality I identified with the potato.”

On a more art related topic, I have started my attempt to draw my way through the non-fiction section of the local library today with the book Invasive Plants of the Upper Midwest An Illustrated Guide to Their Identification and Control by Elizabeth J. Czarapata. It is a book of not very good photographs of some of my favorite wild plants that are apparently noxious. Who knew?

I figure at a rate of one book a week, I have a goal that will last me the rest of my life. Next week perhaps I will visit the wild animal section.

sunlight

I spent some time this holiday weekend in the sunlight. Light is an amazing thing. Most people don’t realize it has different qualities depending on things like the area you’re in, the time of day and the weather. They obviously can see the differences, but don’t stop to think about them much. I can’t blame people for ignoring the quality of light, we all have things to do and there is no surplus of time.

But if anyone wants to explore the quality of light, I suggest giving black and white photography a try. With the new digital cameras that have a B&W setting, it’s pretty easy to do now. Not like the old days where you didn’t really know what you got until the final moment in the dark room and it took years to train the artistic eye. Of course there are those that will argue that using digital won’t really teach you anything about light. But we all need to decide how to use our time wisely, right?

Sunlight on Flower Hononegah Forrest Preserve