It's Art Walk Season!...and time to play three-handed euchre on the grass

Three-Handed   Oil/Canvas   24 x 48 x 1.5

The temperature is climbing....which signals the beginning of summertime activities.  The Akron Art Walk is this Saturday, May 5,  from 5-10 pm.  There is a host of activities within the downtown area which are more fully described on the Downtown Akron Partnership website.  Just click on Downtown Art Works Event Series.  And while you're at it, stop at Summit Artspace, located at 140 E. Market Street at the corner of Market and Summit Streets.  There is fine exhibit in the downstairs gallery of local award-winning artists and several studios on the 3rd floor as well as the grand studio of Akron Society of Artists.  Shirley Blake, our president, will certainly be there to greet you.  As for me, I will be attending "See How They Run", a British farce at Weathervane Playhouse.  My good friend Jo McGarvey is one of the performers.  So much to do...so little time.  All provide a stimulation and awareness that make our lives so wonderful!

As you sow............

Three Daffodils   watercolor   11.5 x 21

Everyone has heard about the positive relationship between sowing and reaping. I like to think of it as an introduction to the notion of possibility. Possibilities make my spirit soar. Sometimes the ideas are totally un-doable, sometimes just a particle to latch onto, and very often discarded after lots of effort has revealed a negative time spent/positive result ratio. Flower gardening is in the last of these for me....I don't really enjoy tending to them, planting them, or even painting them. But, from time to time, I do it anyways. Daffodils are the exception. I LOVE THEM. This weekend I plan to plant more bulbs in our front yard which we are naturalizing in a minimal attempt to keep civilization at bay. Maybe it has to do with that planting and sowing thing, the wait, the possibility, the looking forward to. Maybe it is the bright yellow color that symbolizes sunshine. Maybe it is the memory of treating myself to a fistful at the market when buying them is such a luxury item. Whatever. I paint daffodils yearly and seem to have run the gamut as far as color choices and compositions. "Three Daffodils" was painted in watercolor and restricted in size....I wanted to "paint for the frame", always a bad idea, as I had found a lovely powder-blue shabby frame that was the seed for this year's daffodil painting. Although it did work out after lots of juggling, it is cropped a bit more than I would like. Having boundaries from the get-go of the process is unnatural. Having flowers in a vase is unnatural, as well, to me. Come April, I will be thinking again of painting them.

Equinox

Maiden   mixed/paper   19 x 13.5

I am very mistrustful of words. Dominant cultures have altered meanings and implications throughout time to suit their need for power. Words are used to empower and to diminish. OK. We have to use them to communicate....right? I guess that I appreciate and am more likely to trust those who measure and use fewer words. Visual communication is subjective. It is quiet. The word " pagan" is a perfect example. It used to imply "of the country" or "rustic".....a person who lives his/her life in an intuitive way, according to the seasons. Somehow along the way, the word has been tainted. Spring's renewal of energy is a wonderful feeling. I have been watching the unfurling of our ferns. The unwinding of the frond is unmatched in beauty. Its implications are numerous. Pure rhythm. "Maiden" was drawn with soft pencil. The ferns were printed afterwards.