Art Installation!

Freeport Creative Arts and the Town of Freeport

Invite you!

"Experiencing Freeport, Maine,

Showing Our Town Through Art"

Art Installation Celebration!

Freeport Village Station
Main Street
Freeport, ME USA

Friday, September 4, 5:00PM to 6:30PM

Artwork by members of the Freeport Creative Arts

highlighting Freeport's history and natural beauty.

James Chute, Sebastian Meade, Becca Case,

Karen Pettengill, Kathi Peters, William Larkins,

Jennifer Moore, Kathleen Meade, Natalie Nye,

Petrea Noyes, and Alice Kirkpatrick.

Meet the artists, see the work!

Sponsored by an Artists In Maine Communities Grant from the Maine Arts Commission,

an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and partners – Town of Freeport, Freeport Square Gallery, LL Bean, Berenson Associates, Key Bank and Freeport Community Improvement

Refreshments by Dinner at Your Door.

Music by Not Too Shaap!

FMI: 207.865.1616

Reception sponsored by: Berenson Associates

Reclaiming Old Field Farm & More!

"She Rode a Purple Horse" is headed down to Locust Valley , NY to Anderson Galleries for a show they are hosting. "The End of Season Reception for Old Field Farm" happens Thursday, Sept. 10th from 6-9 pm. If you are in the area do stop in and see my work and enjoy the wine and refreshments. I am also sending down one of my new small JRT caseins, "Leapin' Lizards".
Old Field , an historic Long Island show grounds with a long equestrian tradition is being brought back to life as a center for the Long Island equestrian and community events. I so believe it behooves us to take care of our past....as much as our future. Hopefully the new events staged there will bring present horse lovers memories for their future.

I am busy getting new works ready for the Skyline Farm art show due to open towards the end of September.

And Sept 4th , Friday evening is the reception of the Maine Arts Commissions grant paintings for the Freeport, Maine's FCA group show. I will be there...I so hope you can make that!..... and see "Experiencing Freeport- Our Town Through Art". It should be fun! It takes place at the Freeport Village Station from 5 to 6:30 with refreshments and music! Come on down!!

Belted Cows

Two small works of Belted Galloway's will be added to my website. Above is "Belted Cow #1" and below is the second, appropriately titled "Belted Cow # 2." Done in casein on board, they are being framed in neat thick stressed white frames...ready to go! You can see them on my website in the Small Works Collection.

The weather holds fair on the farm...but they say a touch of fall is in the works for the end of the week. I, for one, will be busy working on a bigger Belted Cow casein in the studio.....but will be taking breaks and deadheaded and trimming back perennials in my gardens. I also want to get some use out of my new riding helmet. In a sense.....getting my life back!

Visiting Freeport Visiting Maine

Several months ago I learned that I had received a grant from the Maine Arts Commissions, along with some other members of The Freeport Creative Arts Organization. We were charged with portraying life in Freeport, Maine.

My family and I used to live in Freeport YEARS ago.... then moved to Pownal , Maine where we lived for over 25 years..raised our sons and started into farming and raising horses there. For several years of those years so long ago.. I belonged to a Freeport art club. I was into tapestry weaving and block printing at that point in my creative endeavors. I wasn't doing a lot of equine art...I just liked to depict animals of any "denomination"!

It has been years now that I have been painting the horse...painting what I love and know so well. As my husband and I got more involved in carriage driving, I also was drawn to depicting the driven horse and carriage turnouts. Today I do do some figurative work...some canine work and an occasional landscape. But it is so true that most artists paint what they love, what fires their artistic flame....and for me that is the horse. SO it was with some hesitation that I took part in the FAC project. My best friend and a fellow FAC member, Karen, pushed me along. I am so glad she got me out of my comfort zone.......

I ended up doing a 4 x 4' casein portraying the Freeport Firemen of the 1930's. It is displayed above..... and in an attempt to honour the Freeport firemen, titled it "Freeport Heroes". Our eldest son is a fireman, one of the first responders in Portland, Maine. He helped me get my information to create the painting.....and I will tell more about that another time.

I just am so honored and exciting about taking part in this MAC adventure!
The reception for "Experiencing Freeport - Showing Our Town Through Art" will be held at The Freeport Village Station in Freeport, Maine on Friday, September 4th from 5-6:30 pm with entertainment and refreshments. I would love to see you there!!!

Things Are Heating Up In The Studio

Things are really heating up in the studio for me and I can't say that it is my painting!! But I take comfort in knowing that some of my artist friends are feeling the heat too...literally!
On another front, I am feeling the heat of deadlines for new shows opening this fall, and will be blogging more about that later. For now I am thinking I need to start doing plein air painting..someplace cool yet sunny! Where would that be? Here in Morrill, Maine it has been into the mid 90 degrees for at least 4 days now.In our little passive solar home the AC is cranking! The weather is supposed to turn today.....relief! Who says Maine doesn't get hot!!???

My gardens are finally really blooming...perennial and veggie....which keeps the deer happy eating all my efforts. The shot above is my front raised gardens....the deer are eating the flocks.Bad deer!

There are a few new works updated on my website. Take a look...enjoy!
And now, I guess I better get cranking....new works in the works! And I am heating up!!!

Dragging Me Out Of The Studio

Sunday was a lovely day weatherize and Les planned that he was going to drag me out of the studio, away from the farm and off to play for a while. It didn't take much convincing, and soon I was packed with cameras and off we went. We stopped in at a farm in West Belfast where they were doing ground driving with Fjords. The demonstration was for beginners...but it was still interesting to watch...how different folks handled their first time behind a horse...not on top of one! First they worked them single, and then as pairs. The two geldings they used were more than agreeable and well behaved. I know I got some good shots of them across the fields, with the expanse of landscape surrounding them.

Then we headed into Belfast and the waterfront.

Docked beside the main pier was a lovely old Barquentine Schooner, "Peacemaker". She is a three-masted schooner made of heavy dark wood....built with beautiful tropical hardwoods. What a treat to step on board this fine old ship and imagine what it would be like to set sail with her. After her stay in Belfast, she is headed to Rockland, Maine and then slowly will wend her way back home where she stays through the winter in Savannah, Georgia.

Here I stand 'decked out' in my corgi hat on the Belfast waterfront! So Les did get me out of the studio....off the farm.....but "fool him"...I was still working! I managed to get some lovely shots for future paintings. This winter I don't plan on spending a lot of time outside!

Second Installment of WIP

This is where I am now, with the 40 x 30" casein of a 3-phase rider who captured my attention last May, when I was down at the Kentucky Horse Park. She was exercising her horse in an arena where many others were also doing the same thing....but for some reason this pair stood out for me. I had to paint them. It is not true that I am fascinated with black horses...the old black stallion syndrome!! But this black showed me purples and reds and blues in his coat. He could be a "Shades of Black" candidate? But this painting is more about his movement, and the landscape and jumps around him. [ See the June 12,2009 blog post titled "Knowing Where I am Going" ]

I have included a gray-scale shot of this work..I often will check my values with a gray-scale image check.I am thinking everything is sort of coming into place okay.I was supposed to be in Saratoga, NY today ,doing a casein painting demonstration at Equidae Gallery in the morning and then going to the champagne reception in the Gallery tonight. So here is a meager attempt to show you what I do when I paint in casein....and this evening I will raise a glass of wine to the gallery and all the fellow artists with works hanging in the show.Wish I could be there with you all!!

So while the winds whip outside the studio, as the storms blow through this part of Maine, I think I will get back to the task at hand.

Playing With Light

I am still going through photos from our Kentucky trip last May. Most shots are of horses, horse farms, Keeneland and Churchill Downs Race Tracks....and yes, several Jack Russells that we met. But I do have some shots of a certain real estate in Cincinnati that I fell in love with. It stood looking down on the Ohio River with tree lined streets and was surrounded by other lovely homes. How I wanted to look inside...I could imagine myself living there.

I came home with several photos of this old Italianate style home....and today I finished this 12 x 9" casein painting of the house. I painted this as an evening scene, as I imagined it might look in the glow of the evening sky. I can still see myself living there!

But I don't know where the horses would fit??;-)

WAOW Online Art Show

Along with being in several other professional art groups, I am an elected associate member of "The Women Artists Of The West"! WAOW announced its inaugural on line show and sale that opened August 1 and will be available through September 30, 2009 . I have two works in this show, and am proud to be a member of this prestigious group of professional artists.
Please take a browse through the online gallery of WAOW members in "Women Revealed: WAOW Showcases Their World". It is a lovely show.

This is one of my two works "hung" in this show.
"Non-Voluntary Dismount" - 12x 9" - casein on paper,
double matted and glassed with black frame.