Snowstorm!

By Carrie Jacobson

I love to paint snow. It quiets my paintings. The white areas shift the focus, bringing out the color in the rest of the world, without intensifying it. On a gray, snowy day, the sky and the earth seem to match, lending a mood and a distance and a softness to the landscape. I love the way the snow sculpts the facets of the earth, covers the details, softens the edges.

Painting in a snowstorm is not so much fun, though. The snow gets in the paint, and makes it like sand. So in the snow, I paint fast. And in a cold snowstorm, even faster!

Come see my work and Shawn Dell Joyce’s work in person! “Celebrations” opens at the Wallkill River School Gallery with a reception on Saturday, March 13, from 5-7 p.m. The show will be up for the rest of the month. The gallery is at 232 Ward St. (Route 17K), in Montgomery. Check the website (to the right, on this page) for directions and details.

Good Sam II

By Carrie Jacobson

Late Thursday afternoon, I dropped by the Lighthouse Gallery, near our home here in Connecticut, to give a final look at “Places & Pets,” the show of my work and Carden Holland’s work, set to open Friday evening.

The show looked great – but there was an open place on the wall above the desk of curator Chris Rose.

On the wall was Good Sam I, a painting of one of our dogs. It is a big painting, 30×30, all in blues. It’s a painting  that I love. (You can see it at the end of this posting).

The hole beside it was just about the same size. Chris wanted to know if I had another painting, another big one. Well, I do, but not one that I want to sell. And already, there were three not-for-sale paintings in the show.

So Chris gave me a challenge. Days earlier, he and I had been talking about the power and delight of painting fast, and he turned to me and asked if I could make another painting.

I took him up on it.

All along, I’d envisioned the Sam paintings as a pair. I mean, everybody needs a pair of giant oil paintings of a Samoyed, right?

So, on Friday morning, after a nearly sleepless Thursday night, I went out to the studio painted Good Sam II.

The pieces look great together! They are just about the happiest paintings I’ve ever made. And they were a wonderful omen for the opening.

It was a festive show, a true celebration, filled with family and friends – and strangers! There were children, teens, a dog, friends from my childhood and from this new life.

 Carden Holland, the marvelous artist who was the “Places” part of the show, had not shown in years and years. Practically her whole family came to the opening, which made it even more special. We have many friends in common, and many of them came to support and celebrate us.

I’d like to say it was a high-selling opening, but it wasn’t; still, it was wonderful, and I had the chance, again and again, to watch as people saw and connected and engaged with my paintings. And that’s a huge, huge thrill! If you came to the opening, thank you. If you couldn’t make it, don’t worry. The show will be up until the end of the month.

Groton is on the Connecticut coast, near Mystic. It’s a wonderful day trip from the mid-Hudson. Generally, the gallery is not open on weekends, but Chris will be happy to open it; just give him a call at 860-445-7626, ext. 108. Commissions from all sales go to support the Lighthouse Voc-Ed Center, which offers educational and social opportunities for people with developmental disabilities.

For more information, see http://lighthousevocedcenter.com/TheGallery.html

For information on buying one or both of the Good Sam paintings, email carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

Good Sam I

The Hunter

By Carrie Jacobson

In the woods along the banks of the Neversink, in the Myers Grove area of Cuddebackville, moles and voles and mice and squirrels multiply. They are everywhere, digging in the leaf mold, feasting on acorns, drinking from the streams.

Killing them was Eunice’s sworn duty.

She would watch for hours, immobile and silent, and then she would pounce – and woe be to the vole who was slow.

This painting (24 inches by 48 inches) shows Eunice in the instant before she leaped. I know from watching her that she was seeing nothing, feeling nothing, focusing on nothing but the poor creature she was intending to murder.

For information on price and delivery options, contact Carrie at carriebjacobson@gmail.com

Sunrise, Sunset

By Carrie Jacobson

Sometimes at this time of year, I find myself confused – about what time of year it is. Is it autumn? Is it early spring? The earth looks so much the same. The trees are bare, the ground is hard, the only color is in the sky.

Last night, I watched a TV show about the migration of monarch butterflies. On wings 4 inches wide, they fly from Canada to Mexico, a journey they’ve never made before, never been taught, never learned –  they just know.

There are so many miracles.

Waiting

By Carrie Jacobson

Niobe was a good cat. No, she was a great cat.

I was about to start college at Northeastern University in Boston, and I was living in a city for the first time, and living alone for the first time. I was lonely and I was scared, and I went to the local animal shelter to get a cat, but came away with a dog.

Her name was October, and she was a beautiful cross of a German shepherd and maybe an Australian shepherd. That first day, we walked around the city for the whole day. Eight or nine hours, we walked, and at the end of it, she wanted to walk more. We walked the entire day the next day, and still, I hadn’t dented her energy level.

What had started as a well-founded doubt now became a clear and unavoidable problem: I would not be able to take my day-school courses, and my night-school courses (I was going to cooking school at night), and have this dog.

So in tears, I brought her back to the shelter.

I left, and walked home. I made it as far as the lawn of the Museum of Fine Arts, which was next to my apartment building, and I sat down and I wept. I wept for October, I wept for myself, I wept for all the dogs in shelters, and all the dogs abandoned and unloved, and then I heard someone say my name.

It was one of my neighbors in the apartment building. He wanted to know where the dog was. I told him my story, crying the whole time.

“You brought her back to the shelter?” he asked.

“Yes,” I wailed, feeling like the worst person on the face of the earth.

“Angell Memorial?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I’m going to get her,” he said. “Right now. I’m moving to the country tomorrow, to a farm, with, like, 20 acres. I love that dog. I’m going to go get her.”

And off he went.

The next day, he and October moved, and I went back to the shelter. There was another wrinkle in this story, for another time, but in the end, I came home with Niobe, a pure white cat, who was probably a year old.

She was an amazing cat, and a funny one, too. Her fur was so thick, and her body so round, she always looked a little like a stuffed cat. Throughout her life, she spent good amounts of time staring at nothing. Staring into corners, staring into space, just watching the air. Also, she was a klutz. She misjudged distances,  and would fall off things she was clearly hoping to jump onto.

She was a food hound, and for years, I fought with her over my food. If I had muffins, she would find them and eat them, including jumping up onto the refrigerator, one day, and tearing open a bag and eating nearly an entire corn muffin.

I’d end up using cereal boxes to make walls around my breakfast, because I couldn’t keep her off the table or away from my bowl. When I moved in with Peter, he set out to keep Niobe on the floor. He’d find her on the dining room table, and she’d stick her head under a newspaper or magazine, figuring that if she couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see her.

If I went away for any length of time, I’d leave Niobe with Mom. Always, when I retrieved her, she’d be mad, and sit with her back to me for days.

But she slept on top of the covers, between my knees, nearly every night for all those years. She greeted me at the dog, dog-like, every day. She put up with other cats, other dogs, boyfriends and eventually a husband, though the first time she met Peter, she bit him.

I had her for 21 years, longer than half my life. She died while we were living in Maryland, and I buried her beneath a forsythia bush on a sunny hillside in our backyard.

This painting is from a picture of Niobe, staring off into nothingness at my mother’s house. It is oil on canvas, 36×42. For price and delivery options, email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

Sam

By Carrie Jacobson

Some creatures are made for this weather, and Sam is one of them. He’s a Samoyed (don’t blame us… he came with the name!). He’s a huge dog, made even huger by his blanket-thick coat. He has hair on his ears, hair on his paws, thick hair on his face. On these frigid mornings, he is in his element, romping and stomping along in the snow, a huge smile on his face. This winter’s glee has made up for all those hot summer afternoons.

For price and delivery options, contact carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

Auld Lang Syne

By Carrie Jacobson

And here is the new year, fresh and untrodden as the new snow –

Until, that is, I couldn’t manage to stay awake, and kept falling back to sleep.

Until I spilled the first cup of coffee all over my clean turtleneck.

Until one of the dogs escaped and we had to race all over the neighborhood, hunting for her.

Until I got paint all over my sleeve, while moving a piece to photograph it, and then smeared my sleeve all over the computer, and the counter and the icebox and the edge of the sink, and even later in the day, my hat…

This morning, the new year, like the new snow, lay fresh and untrammeled and unmarred – until the day began.

And that’s really how it should be, I think. Dogs should track up the snow, and roll in it and decorate it. Humans should shovel it and toss it at each other and slip in it and knock it off branches and stomp it in through the house. We should live this life, make it messy, kick it up, spill things in it, get it all over us – and relish it, in the living.

So, happy new year! I wish you all fine mornings, hearty lunches, messy afternoons, and health, prosperity and good luck.

And if you’re out an about on Saturday, stop by the Wallkill River School Gallery and see my work, Shawn Dell Joyce’s work, and the work of the other artists represented by the gallery. The show will be up for the month; the opening reception is Saturday from 5-7 p.m. Artists will be painting during the reception, and there will be food and drink and plenty of good cheer. The school is on Route 17K in Montgomery. Check the website (to the right) for information and directions.

Bullie

By Carrie Jacobson

Here, at the end of the year, I look back and count my blessings, look ahead and count my hopes, and look at this present moment and feel thankful. This holiday season, my pet-painting business has truly taken off, leaving me a little exhausted and very fulfilled. The coming year will be filled with painting, with the beauty of the world in which we live, and the joy of painting dogs and cats who are loved by the families whose lives they share.

This is a Christmas commission of a dog who loved his family and is still loved by them, long after his death.

For information on having your pet painted, email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com.

Please accept my gratitude for the attention you have paid to Zest over the year and for the kind words so many of you have shared with me – and please accept my best wishes for a joyous and safe new year!

Dusting

By Carrie Jacobson

Snow dusted the ground and laced the trees on this recent morning in Orange County. The days are short, the weather uncertain, the crush of the season is upon us, but buried in all of this, under this dusting of hurry and bustle, are sweet memories and joyful reunions. Best wishes of the season to you all!

This painting is oil on canvas, 11×14. Contact carrieBjacobson@gmail.com for information on price and delivery options.

First Snow, Mohonk Mountain Road

By Carrie Jacobson

As Saturday afternoon waxed into Saturday evening, the first snow of the year spun down from the sky and fell, flakes huge and sticky in the 33-degree dusk, and then, overnight, piled on limbs and lawns and the soft branches of fir trees.

In the morning, clouds and sky and snow and fields laced together in a swirl of white, and I painted wildly, working quickly in the cold and the wind, to capture what the sunlight would destroy.

I know that, soon enough, I will be tired of snow and winter and the broad reaches of white – but now, I am hungry for them, for the way they uncomplicate everything, and tie it all together.

This farm stands near the Mohonk Mountain House, just past a tremendous curve in the road. Horses grazed in the fields, finding grass beneath the morning’s snow. Only a few cars passed. The morning sparkled.

For information on price, size and delivery options, email carrieBjacobson@gmail.com.