The last few tomatoes plucked green from our Indiana garden are slowly ripening on the kitchen counter back here in Maryland now. Our time in Indiana was brief but busy, spent with family and working on the perpetual project that is a one hundred-year-old house. I was glad that my visit coincided with the Solarbron show and that I was able to go to the opening.
The Solarbron Invitational Juried Art Show, always a good one, was really wonderful this year. It is exciting to see such depth of quality in a local show. And the Solarbron art collection is huge and just exceptional. I love to look at it when I am there. It is fun to see pieces from my college professors and artist friends included, and I am happy that one of my own pastels was judged worthy to hang beside them.
But my favorite part of this or any art show is talking to the other artists. I always gain some new insight that inspires. At this show I learned, for example, that an abstract artist I admire carefully plans, struggles over and reworks her paintings as much as any realist painter might. Her paintings are beautifully composed, but yet look so fresh and spontaneous, I was sure she just whipped them off in a flash. I admit it, I have been jealous of her for years. I wondered how she did it. I am glad to know now that she is just as human as the rest of us, and if anything, I admire her even more.
I also love to finally see a painting that I have been hearing about, as a friend who has been trying a new approach or method finally feels good enough about the result to bring it out of the studio. It encourages me to broaden my own artistic horizons, too. Sometimes just a few minutes conversation can provide hours of motivation!
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
Crickets and Chainsaws
Irene blew through and left downed trees, widespread power outages and way, way, way more water than anyone really wanted or needed. In the silence that followed hours of raging, roaring wind, the sun finally emerged to shine down on the green leaf blizzard that blanketed the ground. I took my dog Tiger out for a walk to contemplate the power of Nature. Well, I contemplated; Tiger just sniffed around. So quiet. No cars, no air conditioners, just...crickets. Crickets all around us, chirping their tiny hearts out. Maybe they were just happy to be alive. Maybe it is always like that, but we don't hear the song because our own noise drowns it out.
Back home after our walk, I threw open the windows to the cool, squeaky clean air and dragged my easel and supplies out onto the balcony to work. It had been so long, I had almost forgotten the charms of painting en plein air: the bugs, the breeze, the shifting light. But I felt glad - glad the storm was over and our community weathered it well, glad for a gas stove and a hot meal despite the power outage, glad to get back to painting.
The peaceful serenade of the crickets soon gave way to chainsaws and generators, but the next few days were very productive anyway, despite the change in music. I made good progress on an oil for a show before packing everything up and heading back to our "home base" in Indiana for a few weeks' stay.
Home Base is home to an interesting experiment - a garden left to its own devices for an entire summer, bountiful but overgrown with grass, hiding green peppers turned red, crisp and sweet, blazing hot jalapenos, tiny bright tomatoes, and enough cucumbers to pickle the town. Cantaloupes and watermelons and pumpkins wander freely. Their vines, leaves and fruit in various stages of ripeness cover the ground under strikingly tall sunflowers that nod over, top heavy with seed-laden, faded blooms. All this was bare ground less than four months ago, studded here and there with a barely visible dusting of green, offering nothing more than hope of a harvest and a promise to try, if God would bring rain. He brought bunnies, too, if the mysterious disappearance of the snap peas and green beans is any indicator, but the cucumbers gladly took over. Let be for the season, what happened was not what I expected, but full of welcome surprises nonetheless.
I guess that is what I love about painting, or gardening, or even the weather: sometimes if you are lucky, certain things come together in just a certain way in just the right time, creating something that is ultimately more than the sum of its parts, and ultimately beyond our control, and that can be beautiful in unexpected ways. A watercolor workshop instructor I had many years ago used to say, "put it down and leave it alone." He explained that despite all our planning and preparation, paint touching paper takes on a life of its own, and we would be well served to recognize when something good is happening there and let it be. He could always find the one untouched, beautiful square inch in the midst of a muddy, overworked, disastrous mess of a painting and exclaim, "Look! See what you have here? It's brilliant! Now don't kill it!" and of course we loved him for it.
He was teaching us to listen for the crickets before pulling out the chainsaw.
The watercolor of sailboats that serves as a background at the top of this blog is a small preparatory sketch for the 11 x 14" oil of the same title I just finished, and entered in the Solarbron "Art of Our Decade" Invitational Juried Show and Sale in Evansville, Indiana. I was pleased to receive an acceptance notification today, and look forward to the opening reception this Sunday. In the meantime, I'll be seeking out the offerings of a wild garden, and trying not to step on the crickets.
Back home after our walk, I threw open the windows to the cool, squeaky clean air and dragged my easel and supplies out onto the balcony to work. It had been so long, I had almost forgotten the charms of painting en plein air: the bugs, the breeze, the shifting light. But I felt glad - glad the storm was over and our community weathered it well, glad for a gas stove and a hot meal despite the power outage, glad to get back to painting.
The peaceful serenade of the crickets soon gave way to chainsaws and generators, but the next few days were very productive anyway, despite the change in music. I made good progress on an oil for a show before packing everything up and heading back to our "home base" in Indiana for a few weeks' stay.
Home Base is home to an interesting experiment - a garden left to its own devices for an entire summer, bountiful but overgrown with grass, hiding green peppers turned red, crisp and sweet, blazing hot jalapenos, tiny bright tomatoes, and enough cucumbers to pickle the town. Cantaloupes and watermelons and pumpkins wander freely. Their vines, leaves and fruit in various stages of ripeness cover the ground under strikingly tall sunflowers that nod over, top heavy with seed-laden, faded blooms. All this was bare ground less than four months ago, studded here and there with a barely visible dusting of green, offering nothing more than hope of a harvest and a promise to try, if God would bring rain. He brought bunnies, too, if the mysterious disappearance of the snap peas and green beans is any indicator, but the cucumbers gladly took over. Let be for the season, what happened was not what I expected, but full of welcome surprises nonetheless.
I guess that is what I love about painting, or gardening, or even the weather: sometimes if you are lucky, certain things come together in just a certain way in just the right time, creating something that is ultimately more than the sum of its parts, and ultimately beyond our control, and that can be beautiful in unexpected ways. A watercolor workshop instructor I had many years ago used to say, "put it down and leave it alone." He explained that despite all our planning and preparation, paint touching paper takes on a life of its own, and we would be well served to recognize when something good is happening there and let it be. He could always find the one untouched, beautiful square inch in the midst of a muddy, overworked, disastrous mess of a painting and exclaim, "Look! See what you have here? It's brilliant! Now don't kill it!" and of course we loved him for it.
He was teaching us to listen for the crickets before pulling out the chainsaw.
The watercolor of sailboats that serves as a background at the top of this blog is a small preparatory sketch for the 11 x 14" oil of the same title I just finished, and entered in the Solarbron "Art of Our Decade" Invitational Juried Show and Sale in Evansville, Indiana. I was pleased to receive an acceptance notification today, and look forward to the opening reception this Sunday. In the meantime, I'll be seeking out the offerings of a wild garden, and trying not to step on the crickets.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Painting in a Hurricane?
The sun is shining now in Annapolis, but Irene is coming, so today will be spent wrapping up the preparations we have been making all week. The bicycles and balcony furniture have been brought inside, the pantry is stocked, bottled water is chilling, flashlights are at the ready and my Kindle, netbook, and smartphone are charged. Today I'll be baking cookies instead of painting. It feels a bit surreal, as though I am getting ready for Christmas instead of a disaster. (Except, of course, that it is 80 degrees outside and the bikes are in the living room). You know that feeling of freedom you get when you finish cooking and cleaning for one big event that is dominating your schedule, and there is nothing left to do but wait? Or you are snowed in for a day or two? When there is nothing more that needs to be or even can be done, that is when my creative energy really flows. But it is quite a different thing to sit and paint by a window while snow quietly falls, than when 60 mph+ winds are shredding the trees. I don't know that I can detach myself from reality quite that much. I grew up in the midwest and have a morbid fascination of storms, and can never pull away from a good lightning show or force myself to go to the basement if there is a chance to see a funnel cloud.
My main concern is for my newly adopted but already beloved city. When you paint something, you spend a great deal of time with it and begin to know it intimately. Time and understanding build attachment. Will the sailboats I have painted ride out the storm undamaged? Will our favorite waterfront shops and restaurants escape storm surge? This is not just another pretty place to us but represents relationships we have begun to build here and people we care about.
I wonder too what the ponies on Assateague will do. In several visits to the island, we have come to recognize some of the ponies. Will we find again in the fall the same ponies I painted in the summer?
My main concern is for my newly adopted but already beloved city. When you paint something, you spend a great deal of time with it and begin to know it intimately. Time and understanding build attachment. Will the sailboats I have painted ride out the storm undamaged? Will our favorite waterfront shops and restaurants escape storm surge? This is not just another pretty place to us but represents relationships we have begun to build here and people we care about.
I wonder too what the ponies on Assateague will do. In several visits to the island, we have come to recognize some of the ponies. Will we find again in the fall the same ponies I painted in the summer?
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
The latest...
Although I have not been blogging, I have been painting! I have to confess that my technical incompetence stopped me in my tracks with this thing. I wanted to do some stuff with the layout and posts that apparently can't be done, or at least that were beyond me to figure out. I think I need a "Blogger for Dummies" course! So before I got really steamed I just had to walk away, and found solace in my studio, away from the computer!
Lately with my art, I have been exploring a different approach: Instead of spending weeks on one large piece, I have been painting miniatures, some as small as 3.5 x 2.5", that can be completed in one or two sessions. This is a good exercise for me artistically as it forces me to focus on the basics of composition and design and restricts me from overly obsessing over details. From a practical standpoint, this will help me build up an inventory of available originals, which had been a problem with the "paint one, sell one" pattern I had gotten into.
The coastal areas, inlets and harbors of the Mid-Atlantic are my current subject matter.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
New work now on view at the Bower-Suhrheinrich Foundation Gallery on Main Street, Downtown Evansville Indiana
Poling the Boat oil on canvas 12" x9" Elizabeth Allen Dailey 2009 
"Timido Amigo" oil on canvas 12"x9" Elizabeth Allen Dailey 2009 
Wading the Mangrove Flats oil on canvas 14" x11" Elizabeth Allen Dailey 2009
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
New Work
I have three new works in oil which are currently part of The Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana's Regional Arts exhibition. The public is invited to the opening reception on:
Thursday, January 14, 2010
4 - 6 p.m. (CST)
The Bower-Suhrheinrich Foundation Gallery
318 Main Street
Evansville, Indiana
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