I entered the Francis Hardy Art Center's annual spring salon this year, and I didn't get in to the final cut. It felt odd to not be IN after having reasonable success over the eight years that I have been painting full time, though this is not my first rejection and probably won't be my last. I take pride in the fact that I had the energy to bother entering. Along with about 59 others -my entry was juried out. I celebrate all my friends who win awards, get cash prizes, blue ribbons and great solo shows, it takes a lot of work to get there, energy and passion fuel the success, but the rejections and doubts can take hold and multiply, so I celebrate the act of just showing up, sometimes that is as important as getting first prize.

This year a chicken- inspired whimsy of a painting entitled Pick a Little Talk a Little was my entry, I got these chickens from a wonderful artist and friend, Bonnie Paruch who paints like a dream, she gave up her chickens for personal reasons and I happily accepted them as a source of entertainment, and joy, which I sought to convey in my painting. Those chickens have been a great source for study and observation, they are somewhat creatures of habit, they are not totally stupid and they are in their special God-given way, beautiful birds. I love my chickens, and maybe I didn't do them justice with the oil paint. Maybe the background was wrong, maybe their legs weren't articulated enough to please those who strive for anatomical correctness. But I called in to the Hardy, got the jurors verdict and within an hour the chickens were back home on a wall, happily keeping company with my Australian Magpie Family and another Winter Wren. Birds of a Feather, they have come to roost in my house on the farm on High Plateau and I am happy. Now on to other things, I just finished my 6" painting for the Hardy's fundraiser, last year it was chickens and roosters, this year its a bromeliad plant and a tropical bird. I have to admit, I feel better about it all.

I had a chance to sell this painting this weekend. I decided to hang on to it a while longer though. Its a great reminder of why I don't use a clothes dryer, clothes lines have character, and provide opportunity to hear the birds, smell the air, assess the morning on a purely sensual level and you can dry your clothes at no expense, the sunshine and air is free, at least for now. It is a prayer flag that is seldom witnessed these days, I am trying to avoid sounding nostalgic but the clothesline has gotten a bad rap in some communities, meanwhile, my own line that was here when we bought this place has drawn comments of admiration from many visitors so I am inclined to keep it, and the painting, for awhile longer.

I pick up old plastic horses at thrift shops and for a year this one was stashed in a closet, waiting for a visit from a grand nephew - never know when you might need a toy in the house. I also had a bundle of old paintings from graduate school, stained canvases rendered on the kitchen floor of my apartment back in Ames, Iowa, that bundle wasn't doing anything in the closet either. I was into wrapping as an art form back in the 1990's - I wrapped a powder room chair, I wrapped a giant ceramic egg, why not wrap a plastic horse. I had need of diversion one day during the second or third blizzard of the winter, Steve was in Australia, I was alone in my cocoon, just me and the chickens and 20 inches of snow. Since that exercise I have received about 8 plastic horses of varying size from friends, and have been wrapping ever since.

Growth Spurt- 2011

This is a detail of three panels from my garden series. I spend a lot of time staring into the garden bed and by September the debris and left over tomatoes, oversized zukes and vines from cucumber and butternut squash have claimed victory over my efforts to maintain order. So grab the camera and shoot, see what evolves and start painting. I focus on movement of form and new color arrangements. Each panel is 18"x18", and this piece will be at Charlenes' Gallery Ten in Gills Rock, Door County Wisconsin this summer.(2011)

This painting was done last summer, for an invitational exhibition at the Miller Art Museum Sturgeon Bay Past and Present... It is the backside view of THE RED ROOM an historic pub in town where you can get a great burger. The front of the building is tarted up a bit, the back side seems more authentic in some ways, I wasn't around 40 years ago but the interior probably was. I did an earlier version of this painting complete with pick up trucks parked in back, but decided to do this painting without the trucks, the completed painting has more cracks in the pavement, a weed or two. I loved the little neon sign above the door, and the blue and white awnings. Someone loved the painting - it sold to a local. That made me happy knowing that this painting titled GETTING THE RED ROOM made it to someone else's wall. It was one of two paintings I sold last year. I am not breaking new records but I feel some pleasure in doing the painting my way, and then having someone get it their way. Doing art affords me the opportunity to learn about the world in my own personal approach. I know more about the Red Room now, having studied it for several months. It may seem like a humble thing, and in many ways it is, but its a great thing to be able to do this.

Winter in 2011 starts with some amount of rude adjustment and great sorrow on a national level. A shooting in Arizona, a little girl is dead and now a household word, images of a flood in Australia prompt a higher than average number of questions from casual acquaintances at the Y, is the flooding affecting Steve and your property over there? And "Benign" was a word I welcomed today, and I realize I don't blog more than once or twice a year. Because its enough just to look out at the sky and snow falling gently and just feel like getting on with it, another day in the north.