Spring Has Actually Sprung

This painting called "Crooked Little Box With Orchid Crown" was a delightful subject with shadows cast through open blinds in the studio in the fading day.

My niece brought me this crooked little box enclosing the wonderful fallen orchid. This bloom had run it's course and fallen unnoticed to the floor under a piece of furniture. It had been batted about by the cats for some time before it was retrieved. It's color was still wonderful and begged to sit atop the little box that had so carefully carried it.

It speaks of Resurrection to me and has been immortalized, in a sense, by being captured in this painting and revitalized with new life and meaning by this artist. Wow - that could be deep!

I hope you will enjoy. And yes! spring is here for sure and I look out my studio on hundreds of wonderful bluebonnets and other wildflowers. Spring does truly follow, no matter how long the winter or how deep the snow.

Blessings, SJ0

Returning With Apologies

I apologize for being so negligent to update this blog.  I did complete the painting called "Making History 2" in time for the exhibit in Glen Rose, Texas.  It has a wonderful rose glow to it - very peaceful......

I completed a diptych of the place called "Blue Hole" on the San Gabriel River in Georgetown, Texas.  It is named  "San Gabriel Morning", an oil 8x16.  This painting is part of the "captured" series - objects temporarily captured in roots, rocks, etc. as the river moves along.

We finally had rains in Georgetown and green is the order of the day.  A wealth of birds with their varied songs proliferate this place.  Beautiful!

The sweetest gift for me is the Scissor tailed Flycatcher, the Oklahoma state bird.  They were scarce last summer during the drought which was a disappointment. 

Years ago in a particularly difficult time a Scissor-tail sang all night long - very unusual - so I took it to be a special promise for me of better things to come in a new place, in a new season.  This bird is part of the special nature of being back in Texas.

I have opened my studio-gallery to the public  three days a week, from Thursday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm.  Check out my website, www.sherryjo.com,  for the address and please come by when you are in the area.

NEW PAINTING - IN PROGRESS -update

My daughter, Aaron, complained about my last photo, so I am reposting it showing it's easel surroundings.  She's in NY - she doesn't run my life!

Anyway here is the in-progress only slightly more progressed than before.  Hopefully, It might be completed today.  It is an 11x18 oil on panel and is beginning to make me happy.  SJo

NEW PAINTING - IN PROGRESS

In the last post I related visiting the Paluxi River in Glen Rose, Texas.  This painting in progress is the result of that visit.  Wonderful limestone shelves in the river bottom produce great breaks in the flow of the water.

I have been invited to show with a group of 6 artists at the Barnard Mill Art Museum in Glen Rose, March 28, 7-9 pm.  I was showed there by invitation several years ago when my studio/gallery was there.  The museum purchased 4 pieces of my art for their permanent collection.

NEW PAINTING - "TWILIGHT" 20x16 oil on panel

"Twilight"  20x16  oil on panel

"Twilight" is a painting of a very special place in Colorado Bend State Park in central Texas.  I have done 2 large paintings and numerous small ones from places in this park on the Colorado River.  It is a unique place with wonderful memories of visits I have made there.  One very special memory is of a visit I made with my niece and very good friend, along with her youngest son, my great nephew.  These two are brilliant, and great students of nature and life, along with a raft of other subjects.  She is the only person I have ever known who actually reads the dictionary.  Anytime Jim and I have a question about anything - she is the one we call.  There is always an answer.

I followed behind these two on one of our expeditions to Colorado Bend, and was amazed at the commentary and discussions about the flora of the place as they hiked with their heads down, their eyes searching the ground for amazing undergrowth and rock formations.

Greetings All Over Again

The artist's blogs I love to follow are the ones that are filled with, if not daily, then often, information about the personal workings of the artists, the subjects that move them and the plans that constitute their days. But here I am again, beginning again with a plan to produce a blog that will be a delight in your mailbox.

This plan is to spend some time recalling, remembering, restating, and revisiting some of the beloved rivers and creeks that have greatly informed my work for years. 

This painting, entitled "Making History",  a 24 x 48 oil painting, is one of my favorites, and belongs to one of my collectors and dear friends in New Jersey.  I visited this spot yesterday because I am painting a smaller painting of this same location.  This will be the 3rd or 4th painting I have produced over the years of this very special place in the Paluxy, in the Dinosaur Valley State Park at Glen Rose, Texas.  The Paluxy River is spring fed and winds its way for only 30 some miles until it mingles its waters with the Brazos River from Stephenville to Glen Rose in north central Texas.  Lying beneath its waters are footprints of the giants who once lived and died here.  To walk this river and paint these waters is like being a part of that history.  

So, I begin my river memories here with the Paluxi where I stood on a large limestone boulder in the middle of he river just yesterday and shed some tears over the wonder of my time with that river.

TRAVELINGS

Many of my friends and clients may have an interest in some of the doings of the past few years. We moved my studio from Texas to New Jersey where I taught visual arts in the School of Interior Design of Berkeley College.  

The amazing experiences of a Texas gal up North:

- Jim and Aaron surprising me with a studio for my Christmas present in an art center across the Hudson River from Manhattan. 

 

- My Texas drawl being interpreted by  the folks of New Jersey and New York

- My attempt to interpret my students

- The wonderful artists and friends I worked with at the Monroe Center for the Arts

- Learning to navigate the subway, the path, the ferry, and some of the strangest and most wonderful people from all over the world and of all languages gathered onto an island

- Seeing first hand the Naked Cowboy who walks the streets of New York in his tidy whities, cowboy boots, and western hat.

- Eating real Italian food prepared by real Italians

From New York we moved the studio to East Tennessee.  East Tennessee and the southern highlands area had been one of my favorite painting regions for many years so our time there was wonderful and prolific.

From Tennessee we lived, painted and explored Arizona for several months before gravitating back home to Texas.  I painted the Texas Hill Country for years and now am pleased to plant my studio in Georgetown, Texas.

We are now officially Texans again with license plates and driver's license to prove it. 

My plan is to share paintings and thoughts from those times occassionaly as well as new works that are in progress and as they are completed.