Selected works, then and now

Hickey Brothers Fish Market- Baileys Harbor WI

There has been a fair amount of activity in the studio this month, with painting on a nearly daily basis,  if I could get through the hip deep snow, Steve was able to blow it clear for me, and I spent the days  unwrapping and flattening the rolls of work Steve brought back from Australia. It was work accumulated and left there for years, stored in our car, in a shed, untouched and unseen for a long time, and I forgot I had painted some of the sultry studies of rain forest views. Australiana has been on my mind, but I have also been focusing on finishing up a few pieces started here last summer and fall.  

The red building in the top painting is on property owned by Hickey family, who have a commercial fishing business. I don't know much about the history of this place but the old building and array of ropes, boat accessories and fishing net supplies  attracted me, as well as hundreds of other artists I am certain, through the decades they have been  in business.  This painting was started on site then photographed and finished in the studio over the winter months.

Bromeliad Pathway 2005-06?

Probably done in 2005, water soluble oil on paper, View of the path and hilltop near our cabin-

With apologies for the flash glare here, this is a foggy view of our  rain forest in Gooonengerry New South Wales, the flora and fauna  was dominant in my daily routine, we lived there for each southern summer season, for nearly a decade before selling it. The place changed my life and my perspective. I was amazed at the colors when I unwrapped these studies. Its good to have them back.   I savor the time spent there, and am able to travel back to the moment at which I stood there, leeches inside my socks, the spectre of a brown snake in the bushes, and kookaburra, currawong and tiny fairy wrens surrounded me.  These painted sketches on canvas paper serve as a vehicle for my life's memories. 

Watercolor pencil studies that did get rained on, done from the porch annex on our caravan, 2007

Staghorn Pathway- Goonengerry NSW 2007(?)

 Our Staghorn lined path into the rain forest, which is really mostly eucalypt trees, it is called a dry littoral rain forest, there are some species of rain forest tree there, but the lantana and camphor laurel tend to take over, non native invasives sucking up the water, but our forest had staghorns and orchids and Davidson's Plum and all manner of bromeliads, huge and small. There was always something blooming in there. We would awake to the thump of a wallaby moving up the path, and go to sleep at night often with the sound of a male koala, bellowing away for a female to accept him.

It is my hope to remount these paintings and studies,  and  sometime in the late summer, will host a small exhibition of the work, presented as a  cohesive body of work, Australiana

June Blossoms 2008

Spring Fever or Cabin Fever

It is St Patrick's Day and we had a few snow showers this afternoon. The finches coming to the feeders  betray the weather, with a glimmer of yellow gold coming through on their feathers after months of winter drab.  I have not visited my blog for nearly two months.  The time has flown, Steve  departed and returned after a month of travel in Australia, I  happily endured the snow days and snow plows and kept the chickens fed, the dog walked, and tried to keep up with the increasing blanket of snow on the deck.   I attended art critiques, book club,  spoke as part of panel at the Miller Art Museum, swam at the Y, did gourmet ladies who lunch on a very frigid day,  worked on a new landscape, and two more still life studies, finishing several works which will be posted here later. So just when I think the winter is slow and uneventful, I look back and suddenly its spring, even the new arts guide is out for the season.   Now we have daylight savings time and talk of sand hill cranes returning.  I need to prune raspberries, get some paintings framed,  clear out the spider webs and get  going with a few projects including my garden and possibly some new hens in the coop.

 Here are some firm plans for the coming season at Chez Cheryl Art Space this year;

• June 27 Private party for artists  and friends of artists, participating in Door Prize For Portraiture 
• June 28 through July 27 Open to the Public on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday through the month of July,  11-4 each day, or by appointment. Invitations will be going out later in the spring, early summer.  I will have 21 artists this summer as part of our tribute to the portrait, Door Prize for Portraiture was conceived after one of our last trips to Australia together back in 2009. The Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney Australia was so mind-blowing, we wanted to do our own scaled down version here, so this year will be the 4th annual show.  I will write more about this at another time. 
• August- open by appointment
• September workshop    Ken Kloplack
• September workshop with Emmett Johns in Plein Air Painting
• Dining for Open Spaces, a Private Dinner Event for Door County Land Trust October 11
• date to be announced holiday open house and exhibition of work by Cheryl

GINGKO DUET

waterbased oil on canvas

2011

on exhibit at the Peninsula School of Art Annual Winter Salon, Fish Creek WI 2013

SEPTEMBER WORKSHOP 2012

JANUARY FREEZE

The furnace at the farm house quit yesterday. This means the studio is cold, and while the sun may be shining out there, the frigid countryside is both brilliant and brutal. The oil paints are still sitting out, but they might do better inside the insulation of the oven in the kitchen until a new furnace gets installed next week.

This 100 year old farm house is a dream for me, after living in various houses by myself  since 1989,  I got used to a space of my own. Even after Steve and I got married and moved to a cabin along the  rustic road  of Glidden Drive ten years ago; we down sized, sold things, stored things and eventually lived in a 28' travel trailer in a camp ground every summer, spending winters in Australia, living in a cabin in the sub tropical bush.  This went on for about six years.

  Australians who have not been off their island probably can't imagine the challenges of a northern climate in January, and many question the sanity of our decision to stay  here rather than continue the annual migratory path down under. The  truth is I love a good snowstorm and the isolation and beauty I witness as I gaze across the frozen lake is as inspiring to me as the warmth of the Australian  holiday season. I realize we have other worries now, like pipes freezing, plants that I have nurtured these last 4 years, suddenly  exposed to the hazards of a broken down furnace.  We keep the farm house as a workspace for  me and the place is a sanctuary of  quiet, when the lake noise of summer tourists gets too  annoying.  The farm house is most of all, my space for my thoughts to ramble, to play with materials, to sort  through the odd collection of stuff,  as well as a place to display my own art and feature others during special times through the summer season.

 Workshops in painting and drawing, art critiques and other special events  that somehow find their way to me, offer a chance for us to share our love of the place, the wonderful views, the  light, the geography of the place,  all of this has enhanced my life and level of creativity. So investing in a new furnace seems like a small thing, compared to all that the place gives to me.

SO  OUT INTO THE NIGHT WE GO SNOW OR NO SNOW

Last night we attended the Peninsula School of Art  Annual Salon, floor to ceiling art work, with my friend Renee Hilgers winning the Peoples Choice Award for her massive  assemblage  of a haunted house. It was her first time to exhibit at this event and I was not surprised to hear her name called when they announced the winners for top three peoples choice awards.  There was a raging blizzard off and on outside, cars parked in every spot in the parking lot spilling out into the street; the place was packed, the food tables  looked like a plague of locusts had moved through, the live music was happening, and people were having a good time.   It would take more than a little snow and wind to keep these people home.  I have lived here a while and know a lot of people, but have to admit there were many new faces, many I did not know, in fact, I am getting old and the crowd last night, was definitely getting younger. This is a good thing.

I received some encouragement last night as I was removing my art to take it home, as we are supposed to do at the end of the evening. A young man was lingering with his companion, in front of my work, and he complimented me - said it was beautiful, and since the work was a new direction for me, abstract diptych  of gingko leaves and  earth colored forms, it was all I needed to confirm my thoughts about what to do next. A little compliment, a nice word given at the right time is often all that is needed. A sale would be ok too but just the fact that someone else enjoyed the work was good.  So Chris, if you are reading this, thanks.   That  made my night, and we loaded up and took off shortly  after 9pm, into the night, filled with worry about the furnace, and the swirling mess of snow in front of our headlights, positioning the car  somewhere in the middle of the road, in a white out blizzard, 15 minutes later, we were home safe on Kangaroo Lake Rd. Hoping that everyone else made it home too.

Fort Dodge Fine Arts Association Art in the Park 1975, me in the crowd with acrylic drip paintings and a watercolor collage of a Golden Eagle


On submitting ones self to the public, via the art in the park phenom, I have avoided this route since I tried it once in 1975 in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Sponsored by the Fort Dodge Fine Art Association, and coordinated by the art museum where I worked, (Blanden Memorial Art Museum) this event was in its fledgling stages, held at Oleson Park with a large expanse of green, and a nice  band shell which provided a venue for performances of all kinds. Local bands, barbershop quartets and a womens chorus called Sweet Adelines would all take their turn providing free entertainment for the public. There was snow fence strung around the park, and the artists set up their  sales area in ten foot sections.   There were food tents and tables of church ladies bake sales, and activities for kids, in general a huge  festival of local talent. There was fairly good attendance that day but I didn't see many walking around with recently purchased art work. I had my paintings up and ready for sales, but got only odd looks and comments, while the guy next to me selling animals made out of clorox bottles was nearly sold out of his goods,  and after an hour or two, I realized that the community I lived in was not ready for art in the park, nor was I. I didn't sell a thing, and got more than a fair share of rude comment and arm chair art critic  behavior from a surprising number of people posing as SMART. I was dejected  rejected and angry by the end of a very exhausting day.  In the following years, nearly 15 actually, I ended up chairing that art in the park event, and it grew in quality and size over the years, then I left town for graduate school and I don't know what happened to this beast  but it was all in all a good experience.  I still don't like to make a public display of my self and am uncomfortable about my work being included in shows in the area, and when I am working plein air and someone comes into the work area to look closer or take my picture  I get sweaty and my heart races. I don't stick around long at opening receptions, just so I don't have to over hear comments about my work. You'd think I would be over myself at this age, after all these years, but some anxieties never go away entirely... still friends say I should go paint at the dockside quick paint in July, during the plein air festival, I plead a case of bad knees and arthritis which is partially true, but in a way I am relieved, still there is temptation in facing our fears and one day I might re visit this one.

Several images not posted before, I did a lot of studies, quick ones that seem crude to me right now... maybe my eye sight is getting worse, or maybe its the way I treat my brushes, or perhaps I just have bad coordination, each painting was done on a small  6" x8" panel, in less than 90 minutes, en plein air, the first at Kangaroo Lake in summer, the second painting at sunset at High Plateau Rd and the last as well, looking out my studio window on High Plateau Rd. as hug snowflakes descended.   I scanned this little panels directly without use of  a camera, just lay them on the glass and hit scan, I don't have photo shop so what you see is what you get with this method.  There are more panels but I need to go cook dinner and will blog more later...

On Drawing as  A Lifetime Activity

Horse Head in wax crayon by me at age 8, when I wanted a horse like this to be real, and standing out in the barn waiting for me.

I am taking a break from painting, just for the next few weeks, I am enrolled in a life drawing class at The Artists Guild in Sturgeon Bay WI, with the instructor Craig Blietz  and about 9 students, I am learning a lot in these three hour sessions about  anatomy, weight bearing muscles and light...not to mention the advantages of a light hand, using a knitting needle to sight the proportions of head to shoulders to hips, to knees. That was always something that I avoided, it drove me nuts, proportion.ugh.

 We are drawing from a model who has challenged us with some dramatic lighting and articulated poses. Everyone in the class brings  with them a fairly competent level of experience, but its the masterful words of our instructor that has us all marveling at how quickly time goes by, from doing 4  six minute poses to twenty minutes to forty, suddenly its 9pm and we are packing to go home. Craig has  encouraged us and challenged us simultaneously, at the end of each 3 hours session we walk around  looking at each others work, our errors and victories out there for all to assess.

My friend  artist Emmett Johns talked about the need to draw, and he keeps at it with life-drawing groups in New Mexico, and it was because of his urging that I decided I should get back in the ring and do this. I have not had a life drawing class for nearly 20 years, last  time with artist Loren Wiley at the West Bend Art Museum in the mid 1990's. Before that I had a semester at ISU with Brenda Jones, who had studied with Jules Kirschenbaum  at Drake University, the lineage is staggering really, when considering the background that Craig and other masters bring to the teaching experience.

It is getting harder for me to deal with the physical requirements, can I stand for more than 10 minutes, not really, can i climb the 30 some steps up to the drawing studio, not without some slow steady pausing every now and then, can I sit  with elevated arms drawing, sort of, but by the end of the night I was dropping my conte  crayon  every few minutes, and finding small relief in my Chinese drum movement to loosen the side ache that was reminding me I am not 40 any more. After our 4th session I may sign on at the drawing co-op, also run by the Artists Guild.  I am  so grateful to have landed in this community and can take advantage of these opportunities.

 Drawing has never come easy for me. I have known some people who had a natural gift for it, I did not, but it was a gift to have the compelling urge to pick up a crayon and make marks and that urge has never left me.  A few books saved from youth are evidence to that, with drawings of birds and rabbits and horse heads along with other scribbles of sun, trees and farm animals  littering the margins and front piece of  Childrens Book of Prayer and bird identification books.  So thanks to people like Craig and Loren and Brenda, and way back, my highschool art teacher Hildred Finson, and my mother  Doris Stidwell, who would draw for me during the church services just to keep me quiet.  My drawing gets more interesting if not improved in many ways because of them.

September 2012

A selection of a few unfinished paintings, started during the first week of September, I painted one afternoon with a friend at Waseda Farms, in their garden, in view of several barns, a coffee pot silo and a shed. Waseda Farms is just a short drive from my house, and has some wonderful  garden produce, grass fed beef and hogs-  they are generous and were willing to have us sitting around painting in the middle of their hard working gardeners

 This quick sketch was done one afternoon  late, at our farmstead on High Plateau Rd., the building is the granary, with the barn off to the left and an ancient arbor vita.

Windsor chairs seem to find their way into my world and I needed some ideas, painting the chair is a challenge and I am not sure I can do much with this.

This is another outbuilding on the property of Waseda Farms, and is also an unfinished image. I work on these small canvas panels, 6"x 8" doing very quick studies, with no goal in mind other than to see how much I can put into the panel without overworking it.

During the workshops with Emmett Johns, I went outside one day to paint, but the weather turned very wet and windy, with our class going in doors for nearly two days.   I also managed to find time to visit Hickey Brothers Fish place on Ridges Road, just off Lake MIchigan, the place has a lot of interesting stuff sitting around. I photographed  and started a study which I have yet to get back to. My energy level comes in waves, I have been distracted lately with the stuff of life,  I admire those I know who are able one way or another to do this every day, making a living from their own art work. I have the benefit of social security which helps, but am feeling a little discouraged, with no sales this year.  Still I go to area galleries and see red dots on paintings - someone somewhere is buying work.


So-----

Looking at Hickey Brothers Fish Market, near Baileys Harbor Yacht Club, I keep going back to this place, this road, so close to the lakeshore and the Ridges Sanctuary, this stretch of property near Lake MIchigan is becoming one of my favorite things about living in Door County,  very local, very much the product of lake culture, the buildings and old boat sitting here  have been painted and photographed countless times but never ceases to draw me in on a regular basis, and promises something new and different, if you look for it.