"Fog Mirror"

acrylic on paper, framed, image is 7 1/2"x 5 1/2"

You can't live around large bodies of water very long without experiencing fog. I have often sat and watched it billow up the ridge towards me from the surface of the lake which seems to somehow be breathing it out into the air. The idea for this little scene came from a quote by Frank Graham, Jr. " The distinction, therefore, between fog and cloud is that of position. Fog is a cloud on the earth; a cloud, a fog in the sky." Isn't that wonderful to think about?

"The Veil of the Moon"

acrylic on paper, framed, image is 9 1/2" x 6 1/2"

For me, one of the most wonderful gifts of living by a lake is the opportunity to watch the water change colors and tone throughout the day. Dawn is spectacular and full of hope, like us usually, but it is early evening during those days of the month when the moon is waxing and rising early on the light trails of the sun that I love best. The water glows and shines in a way that feels like a blessing to me. Somehow the enormity of it's tender beauty soothes over whatever hard and difficult things the ending day brought. This small pieces is about that translucent veil that falls across the surface the lake just after the great pearl frees itself from the treetops.

"The Sky Remains"

Acrylic on canvas 30"x 24" museum wrap

"Through the empty branches, the sky remains/It is what you have." Rilke The Book of Hours

I've been doing a great deal of thinking about sunsets. Probably because of the loss of one of my closest friends. I have a sense my awareness of this daily ending is in some deeper way, helping me to sort through my sorrow over her passing.

We have all had those days when we simply want to get through it. It may have started off well enough, but at some point, we are ready for it to be done. I wonder if dying is like that?

I think the thing here for me is simply this: when the day gathers itself up across the sky I find a bit of hopefulness there. Sure the day is over, with whatever happened, but it's over. Watching the sky torch out reminds me that much of what didn't work can be left to go with it. Those things which will linger (and there always are those rascals, right?) at least you will have a respite from before tackling them again in the light of day.

Surely, there is a Baptist sermon and an altar call in that last paragraph, but beyond that I am thinking about renewal and those lines 'the sky remains/it is what you have. Maybe woven in there somehow is sustenance to keep on going. Maybe by witnessing the rhythms of the sky and world around us, we gain perspective. How much less in comparison are we to all of this? How can what we strive with be any greater? Don't know. But I am thinking about it.

"The Laughing Place"

Acrylic on canvas, framed, image is 45" x 35"

Almost everyone has a favorite place which has the power to call them. Growing up with parents raised on farms, my early childhood was full of long camping trips deep in the woods. My sons are amazed that I survived this since they secretly believe room service was invented for people like me. The truth is, none of my brothers or sister thought anything of the expeditions off paved roads in some remote part of north Georgia. Weekends would often find us loaded up for an 'outing'. Usually we would end up somewhere along a river. There would be a packed lunch or something to cook out for dinner after Dad found us a place along the shallows. We called it going to our 'Laughing Place', a term borrowed from the Uncle Remus stories we had heard in our nightly bedtime readings from My Book House.

I have no memory now of what my parents did on those river afternoons. Seems like Dad sometimes fished. Having been a mother myself, I imagine Mom simply collapsed. What I do understand now is this was an instinctual resource for two people raised in the wealth of the countryside. When life, kids, jobs got too much, they returned to what their hearts loved best--rivers, fields and woods. It restored them. That ability to touch and heal us is the gift of place. While the choice of where it happens is as unique as the person choosing, we are all born into the same blessing. Perhaps when we become lost to this beautiful world and ourselves, it is the voice of the laughing places we hear calling.

Recently when I asked my older brother if he remembered those excursions into the wilderness, he replied, "Oh yeah, the laughing place". It was a wonderful moment.

"Red Oak Bark"

acrylic on board, unframed, 16" x 20"

Each species of tree in the woods has its own signature bark. Walking through a stand of hemlocks or hickories or oaks the color and texture of the trunks may seem the same. But move in closer, take a second and third look and you will soon discover there are differences in each one. Some bark shows the wear and tear of rubbing against other trees, in some places you will find cuts and scrapes where animals have been or the evidence of fire or ice damage. Like our own human faces, the bark of each tree carries the story of its life. This is the bark face of a red oak.

"Trees in Silver Moonlight"

acrylic on canvas, museum wrap, 30" x 24"

Full moons on winter nights in the woods have their own special magic. The radiance of the light as it moves down through the bare trees creates an 'other' world to use the language of many indigenous peoples, a term they used to try to explain the mysterious awareness it awakens. Why does that happen? What in us suddenly awakens and recognizes that mystery? I don't really know, but I do believe it is why we are here.

"Little Moonwatch"

Acrylic on canvas 16"x20" museum wrap

One of the legacies left by my Dad was something my family calls 'Moonwatch". In the years when my folks first lived on the lake, Dad would call on full moon nights and say only one word over the phone: Moonwatch. Getting that call meant only one thing: he was on the water, had a glass of his famous mixture in hand (vodka, grapefruit juice and Fresca) and wanted to share his thrill at the sight of the luscious full moon. I've painted several versions of this view, this being the smallest I've done. The way the moonlight spills across the water is truly something to see.

The land around the lake has slowly developed and now at night we see not only the stars and moon, but the twinkling lights of other houses and docks. But full moon nights are still spectacular and in this day of text messaging it's not unusual for my family to text his code word to each other from all parts of the world. Dad would be so delighted to know that his reverence and appreciation of the natural world has been passed along to all of us in such an enjoyable way.

We let him keep the mixture recipe to himself.

"One Tree, Blue and Moon"

acrylic on paper, framed, image is 15" x 11 1/2"

This is from a series were I am exploring what I call 'elements'--the more basic shapes and colors and feelings held within a landscape scene. My work is moving towards distilling what I see into more of an expression of what I feel in my connection to the natural world. I have a sense that eventually even the shapes will fall away. We'll see. In the meantime, the spareness of these shapes is very comforting.

"Three Bare Trees on Yellow"

acrylic on paper, framed, image is 15" x 11"

From the lake house windows where I live, I am able to watch the sun rise and set. Sunrises tend to be fairly spectacular and full of lots of energy. Sunsets have a much more concentrated feel to them. The colors can be just as rich and luscious as those at dawn, but the energy is completely different.Mixed in with all the light you can also feel the dissipated energy of the day ending as it follows the sun to rest. The light is much deeper and creamier than any seen at sunrise because of that. Watching it back light the bare tips of the hardwoods fills my heart with compassion. I know not for what or who--maybe for everything.

"Maple Haiku"

acrylic on paper, framed, image is 15"x 11"

There is an incredible Japanese Maple growing in the courtyard of the lake house. In Autumn, looking up through its leaves at the sky and sunlight is surpassed only by seeing the ocean of red carpeting the stones below it when its leaves drift down. The ten days it takes for it to fill with fire is the high point of Fall for me. These kinds of small but enormously powerful experiences are the bones of living. They hold us up in the face of everything else. Like the words of a haiku poem they have the ability to fill us up with so little.

"Orchard Tabernacle"

Acrylic on paper, framed, image is 30"x 22 1/2"

This is a pecan orchard. Anyone familiar with middle Georgia knows you cannot travel very long on the state roads without encountering one. Their appearance is often a surprise after miles and miles of pasture and pine woods. It's easy to round a bend and there, rising before you is their tabernacle. The lovely arching upper branches always make me think they are lifting their shoulders and arms and fingers in some sacred rite of praise. Perhaps they are. Stately, elegant they permeate the air with their dusky smell, especially late in the day after the heat has gone and the mist at dusk begins its graceful accent through their branches. Sometimes, late in the afternoon, the sun casts luminous shadows through them and the orchard fills with indescribable buttery yellow light. Whenever I see it happening, I understand in my heart why some of the earliest holy places known to us were groves of trees.

"Worthwhile Things"

acrylic on canvas, framed, image is 30" x 36"

You look and soon these two worlds both leave you,
one part climbs towards heaven, one sinks to earth,
leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unansweringly given to the eternal as that thing
that runs to a start each night and climbs--
leaving you (it's impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing
so, that sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.

Rilke, "Sunset"

There is a holy intensity about the close of day. It signals the arrival of the dark--that deep and mysterious time with the power to awaken the connection in all living things to our common beginnings in the womb. As the veil of night descends it takes us with it, creating an opportunity to place our own lives within the ineffable scheme of existence. I believe it helps us to see it is through acceptance of the paradox of daily life that we create beauty and meaning.

"True North"

acrylic on canvas, framed, image is "48x60"

I never knew cattails could grow to 7 and 8 feet until I began birding along the northeastern shore. Up until then, I had only seen them struggling along in the ditches beside southern highways.

This picture is of part of a huge stand of cattails surrounding the ponds at Cape May Bird Refuge in New Jersey. The refuge is on the eastern flyway and every spring and fall shelters thousands of birds as they migrate back and forth between the northern and southern hemispheres. When I first saw the cattails I didn't even recognize them for what they were. They towered way over my head and were teeming with blackbirds, sparrows, all sorts of songbirds and wading birds. It was incredible. They were all a maze of paths, a few made by men and marked, but most by the creatures they contained as they made their way back and forth to the ponds the reeds encircled. The paths were muddy and full of puddles, feathers, droppings, clam shells and husks. One of my best memories is of sitting on a golf stick seat, late in the chill of a fall afternoon after having wandered back along some vague little path and ending up at the pond. The preserve was deserted, the light on the tall reeds all around me was so clear it was almost crispy. I had my tiny little bourbon flask, just enough to salute the coming dusk. It was magical.

Whenever I am lost to the man made world with all of it's massive artificial complexities, moments such as these remind me of where our center really lies, where our inner compass knows true north exists. The compass may not be for each of us in a stand of cattails, but a place does exist, somewhere that can remind us.

(I left the droppings out)

Light on the Water

acrylic on canvas, museum wrap, 30" x 40"

Over the years I have decided that the people who love the lake the most are the ones who like to just sit and watch the light on the water. Years ago where I live now, it was common to see a regular little flotilla of boats drifting quietly at sunset watching the sun withdraw it's net of light back into the sky. Maybe because it is contained, lake water has a unique texture and body. To me it seems thicker, silkier than streams or rivers or the ocean for that matter. It's color can range from blue to green to black and everything in between depending on the time of day and the slant of light. This painting is about that glazed over moment late in the day, adrift on the water and simply resting in the reflection of the receding light.