One of my friends noticed that I was in the Hi Desert Star this week – one of the artists mentioned at the recent 29Palms Art Gallery Spring Faire a couple weeks ago.
This Link goes to the direct page.
I made it into the news
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Category Archives: desert
Another Forever home
The title of this painting is ‘And Never Leave…’ I’m glad to say that it has found its forever home with one of my favorite collectors!
Dawn off my back porch (there’s a new one every day but few look as good as this one). The poem written for this painting and painted into it is:
To step into a place and just belong
to stand within a sky and to believe
to raise your head, look up and to behold
and never leave, and never leave, and never leave.
Newer work #110
This is one of a couple paintings that I’ve been holding back because it was on hold for a show in Joshua Tree. Well, it didn’t get picked up as the winner, so now I can show it to you.
I’m going to add the caveat that I think that’s the dimensions…. in the silence since I last posted my laptop was ill and I’ve yet to recover my database to give the exact measurements, and I’m not at home to go measure it again!
Sonnet Challenge #37
Got the inspiration for this one while doing a little clean up for my absent neighbor. I was working early in the morning before it got way to hot, even for the acclimated desert rat, to be doing yardwork. I decided to turn the inspiration into a kid’s summer day because the first line had a bit better ring than ‘I caught the sun while grubbing in the yard…..’
Catching the sun
You caught the sun, you held it like a ball
in two-year hands – a shining rounded joy
so newly given, a perfect rolling toy
and never thought that it would burn at all.
Your retina was blotched from gazing up,
your shoulders burned, your face, your arms, your knees
from summer’s day your heart demand you sieze
to dance beneath the heated turquoise cup
of sky. And as earth rolled round to sunset
you played your heart out, flew it like a kite
upon the solar wind, til it grew night
and tiredness told you it was time for bed.
Your red face says you caught the sun today.
Your smile, that it was worth it just to play.
To the flower.
To the flower.
I’m sorry,
that had to be incomprehensible pain
to be ripped from your plant
just when you were blooming
hoping for bees
to fertilize
to make seeds, a future.
But he plucked you I know,
doing it in love
of your beauty,
of me,
of the day.
He brought it with hearts in his eyes
one sunny morning
wanting nothing but to make me smile.
I talked to him later,
asked that next time he bring a photo,
leaving other flowers where I like them,
still on the plant.
He said he’d plucked you from a patch of your family
like a field of orange,
the world might not miss just you.
Then perhaps you can forgive him,
of your kind there were so many
and of him, that man,
and the love he has for me,
there is only one.
Newer work #94
I love the desert rain when you can see it falling from a distance – sometimes the air below being so dry the rain never reaches the ground – the effect known as virga.
#1409 Desert Virga. Watercolor collage on foamcore, 7.5×5.5″ in mat to fit 10×8 frame. $45.
Contains the haiku:
Desert virga falls,
precipitation transforms
into a thin veil.
Tales from the field #32
Tomorrow is Black Friday and I’m a retailer so I’ll be at a show in Palm Springs. Today is Thanksgiving so I wanted to find something to be thankful for:
The flood got deeper as I continued the setup
This Thanksgiving I am thankful that:
- the rain I set up my tent in was merely heavy rain and not freezing
- that it wasn’t windy so I could put the walls up without having to put the weights on first
- that my booth is on a well drained grassy slope
- that my truck was ignored by Palm Springs finest, alongside the red curb and half in a flood, with the park anywhere lights on
- that my truck has a heater because I was soaked from my head to my hips and my feet to my thighs
- that my truck was able to navigate the floods along Ramon Road
- that there weren’t any crazy fast drivers who caused a crash on the freeway
- that I decided to go for this wet setup so I don’t have to get up at 4 am to set up tomorrow
- that I am writing this listening to the rain on my roof while a turkey cooks
A gallery closes
I started working with Sm’Art gallery I think 3 years ago, maybe 4. It was a strange start. I received a cold-call email that sounded good, not the usual scam stuff, but the attachment wouldn’t open. After some thought I replied. It was a real offer, Alana had managed to have an email blast sent to the local attendees of ‘Art under the umbrellas’ show.
I signed up for the co-op gallery – we share the rent and working in the gallery. I have made many good contacts and friends over the years, taught a lot of classes (Alana was instrumental in the design of the ‘Painting for Absolute Beginners’ class and the contact that let to a season of intermediate classes, the contents of which become follow on exercises for ‘Absolute Beginners’.
At the end of October, Alana decided to close the gallery. A combination of factors came together at the end of the lease and we had our final evening. Here are a couple photos from the first 20 minutes before the crowd got there.
Just getting set up. Holly had created some ‘Day of the Dead’ paintings.
Sitting around chatting. We did quite a bit of business that night, especially Janice – who is the one with the gray shirt, on her device.
Glass Outhouse Gallery – ‘Fleeting Passions’
A few years ago I was introduced to the Glass Outhouse Gallery in Wonder Valley – just east of 29 Palms. It is in the middle of nowhere, even more than I am, and has a small gallery where Laurel and Howard hold month-long 2-artist shows, and a sculpture garden made of recycled material art, created by Howard.
Four skies in the Glass Outhouse Gallery
I had a show there a few years ago with my Mixed Media work and am scheduled to have another show there with that medium in January 2021. Yes, artists do plan ahead.
The cart shows that this is a hanging day.
As I have another body of work and enough Mixed Media to run two shows concurrently, I’m on their ‘waitlist’. A list of artists who, in an emergency can put together a show in a couple days. Last week I got the call.
The outgoing artist hadn’t picked up her work yet.
I had planned to take my oils and acrylics to the show in Monrovia this weekend, but with a quick call I managed to get that changed and this body of work was available for the month.
Nice little row, the last 4 ‘diamonds’
My fellow artist is Tami Wood. We both joked that our names are two four-letter words. Her work is made exclusively of recycled materials. We’ve called our show ‘Fleeting Passions’ because we both explore ephemeral aspects of our environment.
And room for the bin, that holds paintings I did in or for paint and wine evenings that I’ve taught.
After the show in Newport I brought everything up and hung the show. Howard will pin up the prices later.
I’m surprised the one on the left hadn’t sold at Newport, it had a lot of interest.
Because of existing commitments (Monrovia), I can’t be at the reception but Tami will handle that and I’ll do my share of gallery sitting during the month.
The painting on the right is one from my house – I’m down to the last few oils and acrylics and am selling at discount prices!
What I didn’t realize until I told another friend in 29 Palms about the late arrangement, I’d scored a show during the Highway 62 Art Tour – three of the four weekends in October, and the Glass Outhouse Gallery is one of the stops. Wow, I’m sure glad I decided to go for it!
Almost exactly the right amount of space, there was only one suitable painting I didn’t put up!
I feel bless that because of various issues outside of my scope, I now have a show with both bodies of work on the Highway 62 tour – I have Mixed Media work at the High Desert Medical Center!
A forever home in Flagstaff
A recent sale of one of my larger paintings resulted in this young couple hanging a beautiful view over their dining room table.
“Away we go” has the following poem written for it and painted in just below the horizon. (The birds that it refers to aren’t easily seen at this distance.) The days approach the dawns’ bright glow we stretch our wings away we go.
Skyscapes for the Soul - Jeni Bate 