art website is here!

My new art website is here: www.blueladyarrts.com I may eventually close this blog out, or shift it to the site. My paintings are for sale,and are also on display as of Monday, Nov. 2, at Edible Vibe restaurant in downtown Rocky Mount!

Birth of a Painting: a sequence

The finished painting. Scroll down to watch the project step-by-step from the drawing to the completed painting.

O'Keeffe, Motherwell, museums in SC and FL

I am about to start painting again after a hiatus of nearly nine months. I just have not felt creative since the death of my husband. I have given this fact a lot of thought. Perhaps creativity is linked to the future, a need to make something, share something, to offer the world something new. Even if the subject matter of the art is something from the past, the "creating" something of the present, the thing created is for the future: a legacy.

In the past month I have visited two amazing art museums: the Museum of Fine Arts in Columbia, SC, and the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach. Both have exquisite collections of just about everything. But the best thing was the special exhibit of a huge number of Georgia O'Keeffe paintings paired with Ansel Adams photos at the Norton.

At an auction in Delray I was able to get at auction a 1966 signed art poster by Robert Motherwell. I do not much care for Motherwell's art, but I respect his having done something new, with "abstract expressionism." And on my mother's line I am related to Motherwell, and obtaining this signed poster will be part of my own legacy to my son.

Death of My Husband in May

We had a big historical/architectural house tour here in May for a bus full of history enthusiasts from Blacksburg, VA (home of Virginia Tech).

My darling husband died May 23rd, and the event here described was obviously cancelled. On May 28th the art group I belong to, Bald Knob Artists, would have come here for a tour of art and for a demonstration in my art studio.


Can you see me in the reflection in the silver cream pitcher? I was wearing blue that day.





Hmmm...preserved in a pitcher.
That makes me richer...
shining in silver,
preserved in a silvery
curve.
The nerve! The verve!
A silvery curve.
I'm richer for being...a pitcher!

Portraits

This is Mother's Day, the first one without my Mother. She died 7 months ago after complications after a fall. The medical and institutional mistakes took her life. But on this special holiday I want to remember her as a loving, thoughtful, beautiful, healthy, funny, spirited lady, and mom to three daughters.

This portrait of her was done in 1949 in Chandler, AZ, by Viennese-born artist Fritz Werner. He posed her in a Spanish-style gown, possibly because she is half-Irish, and is "Black Irish," a black-haired descendant of the Irish whose ancestors were interbred with Spaniards when the Spanish Armada strayed from their course in 1588 and ended up on the shores of Ireland, instead of landing in and attacking England. A beauty all her life, my mother was a perfect subject for a portrait. I was born the year after this portrait was done.

On this Mother's Day 2008, I thank my late father for commissioning this superb portrait and I thank the late artist for capturing her personality and beauty so well.

My oil paintings on display in Rocky Mount

I am going to put as many of the oils on here as I have photographed, so people can enjoy them even if they cannot make it to the show at the Franklin County Public Library (through April 15th). I paint to bring a smile to the face of the beholder.

Plates II

Britney Spears Watchers

Pitcher Shadow

Coffee and Cream

Tea and Letters

Unfinished Lady

Self Portrait 2008

Plates III

After a Thibault painting

Fork and Oysters

Plates I

Florida Nurses

Fork and Beans

Workforce 21 st Century

Teenagers

"Mall Curfew" oil 2008

This is one of the 19 oils exhibited from March 1 through April 15th at the Franklin County Public Library on Franklin St. in downtown Rocky Mount, VA. I called it "Mall Curfew" because it represents three colorfully dressed teens who cannot get into the mall, but who like fashion and shopping.