Losing Geoff (Triptych) - SOLD

Losing Geoff (Triptych) ~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)

Three 9 in. x 12 in. panels, acrylic on canvas

$378 (unframed)

This triptych is a few years old, and had been living a quiet life in my home for most of that time, with only three ventures out of the house to go on display at brief events. This week, at its third outing, it sold almost as soon as it went public. In fact, at the New Light Art Show reception, several people commented on it and one woman told me I could have sold it at least a couple of times over, based on her own love for it, and on the feedback she said she'd heard from others. 

Losing Geoff was the first triptych I ever painted, and, despite it having been a memorial exercise on the occasion of losing a friend to a sudden illness back in our old church, it was an enjoyable challenge to paint.  The composition is a "treescape" or an expanse of oak branches viewed from underneath the tree, looking up at the summer sky, and spanning the entirety of three panels.  The piece may be enjoyed for what it is, without knowledge of the "Easter egg" within it to which the title refers. 

The story the painting tells is as follows: The leaves are a community, of sorts, all living within reach of each other, brushing against and interacting with one another, all clinging to, and receiving life from the tree to which they are attached.  A few bare twigs void of leaves mark the piece here and there, but on the leftmost panel, there is one vacant twig, freshly bereft of its leafy member, marked by a single, glistening red drop on its terminus, a fresh wound made by the amputation of the living leaf newly ripped from it.  This image was an apt reflection of the painful void in our fellowship left by the unexpected death of our dear friend and brother in Christ.  

The branch will not be bare forever.  We will vacate our own branches each of us, one by one, but we will be together with our lost one again.  Spring will come.  He promised.

Mount Kearsarge, Wilmot Side - SOLD

Mount Kearsarge, Wilmot Side  ~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)

12 in. x 16 in., acrylic on canvas

$196 (framed)

The northern slope of Mount Kearsarge is home.  I spent my earliest years living in Andover village, at the base of Kearsarge.  His stately, flat top will always be recognizable to me from wherever he rises up from the horizon, and when I go near him, I feel like I could lie on the soil of his dominion and become part of his very roots.  I have climbed to his square-blocked, rocky summit many times; my first climb was when I was six years old, and my forty-something mother, refusing to be outdone by the younger moms in my first-grade class, insisted to my teacher that she would most definitely be one of the chaperones on our field trip up the steep Winslow Trail.  Here he sits under a dramatic skyscape in a pose most familiar, just off NH Route 4 just north of the Andover town line.

Bartlett Pear Study - SOLD

Bartlett Pear Study ~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on canvas

$72 (gallery-wrapped canvas, no frame needed)

Just a quick study of a simple Bartlett pear, with it's bumpy, green-to-yellowing ripening transition.  I love pears, and I grew up with Bartlett pear trees with were heavy with huge yields every fall.  I think they've gotten short shrift here in America, where we're all about apples, all the time.  Pears are mellow, juicy and lovely, and ought to be used more often in our common cooking and baking.  If this were a food blog, I'd dazzle you with a sexy photo of the glorious pear and cardamom skillet pie I made last fall.  

Franklin, NH, Christmas 1972 - SOLD

When I was a little girl, and we lived in the small town of Andover, NH, the nearest city my mother would drive to for groceries and the like was the small mill city of Franklin, about a 10 mile drive from Andover across Route 11. This intersection is Central Street and Franklin Street at the old bank on the right, with the old J.J. Newberry storefront on the left. At Christmastime then, and still today, the city of Franklin decks out the downtown with those wonderful retro electric-lit Christmas swags and ornaments, looking a lot like the fictional Bedford Falls from the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life." This little painting is from an old photo after a snowstorm and heavy road sanding, looking toward Willow Hill. Other than Newberry's and it's fantastic old wood floors being gone and the the cars being newer, the scene here looks very similar to Central Street in Franklin today.

Franklin, NH, Christmas 1972 

~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)
6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on canvas
$72 (gallery-wrapped canvas, no frame needed)

Winnisquam Sunset at Ahern - SOLD

Winnisquam Sunset at Ahern ~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)

8 in. x 8 in., acrylic on canvas  
$115 (framed)

A late summer afternoon with a friend sitting on the sandy eastern shore of Lake Winnisquam at Ahern State Park here in NH was the inspiration for this painting.  There's a little walking trail that leaves the beach and runs up the knoll through the woods, emerging on this little woodsy rise overlooking a sharp drop-off down to the water.  The sun was setting on the other shore (that's Steele Hill, there) with strong light right in our eyes just outside the right frame of the painting and illuminating the dry leaves and pine needles on the ground with gold. The warm and cool colors were exciting to me and the shadows were fun and dramatic.  It was a good excuse to use blues and oranges, my favorite complementary pairing together.

Two Lights On The Rocks (A Mini Painting) - SOLD

Two Lights On The Rocks 

4 in. x 5 in., acrylic on canvas

SOLD

When you visit Two Lights at Cape Elizabeth in Maine, there's a small, elongated promontory of brittle quartzite and phyllite that rises up and juts out into the Atlantic Ocean.  The long, stepped and faulted surface looks like squared off logs stacked like stadium seating and rubble tumbling into the surf on one side and dropping off to a cliff on the other. When you stand on the top of the promontory looking out to sea, you get the rubbly view of this painting.  It was a moody, overcast day in winter, and everything was blue-green midtone.

It's a tiny painting... see?

This is a mini-painting, a small study of the rocky outcropping at Two Lights that can fit in your hand.  It required brushes many times smaller than I usually reach for, but it was a fun challenge, and captures the chilly, rocky and nonstop wind here.  It's a cool, simple composition, but if you've stood out on top of the ledge here, you recognize the sights and you can hear the open sea pounding into the rubble around you.

And maybe being confined to a tiny painting tames the power of the place just a little?