And, of course, we will be witnessing and photographing all the beauty we can grab -  fodder for future paintings and creative endeavors that haven't yet been imagined.

On the easel, just completed, this selfie-inspired portrait (what to do when you've run out of inspirational models!) in oils.  Underneath the portrait is a full failure of a painting, which became a lovely base of texture to keep things from becoming too precious. Beginning with a notanized photograph, I roughed in a sketch in blue oil pastel.  Then a liquin-thinned wash of white mixed with ivory, grabbing the blue pastel edges and thinning it all into the beginnings of flesh-tones.  The requisite 80 million layers of paint, this time with a very small brush (usually I opt for something large to keep things loose).  The small brush allows some natural mottling and texture. The hair was roughed in with a rubber brayer, some chopsticks and the occasional shirt-sleeve (unintended)  

​The last painting of summer.  And now....fall!

Have you ever completed an impossible task?  Overcome the un-overcomeable?  Done the thing you didn't believe you could do?  I'll bet you have.    I think we all have bone dogs in our lives - a symbol of our own tenacity, resilience and determination.  With perhaps a little magic, serendipity and the love, support and encouragement of others.  When I think of the things I have done that I didn't believe I could do, I feel a little sparkle.

And so this piece - a dog made of bones - a talisman for the impossible.  Which we know, you and I, is sometimes very possible, likely, probable and ​done.

Somewhere in this odd couple of pandemic years, we began reading aloud each afternoon.  A bowl of popcorn, a couple of popcorn-hungry pooches and two humans transported by words to places far, far away. The places, the stories, the juicy descriptions and words - oh the words! Words to look up, savor and roll around the tongue.  Words to contemplate and share and deliciously place into sentences.  Words to forget as aging brains leak a portion of what we glean every day.

And this lovely ritual contains both learning and loving - Clarke's formula for happiness.

It also leaves two artists with brains stuffed full of adventure, creatures, planets, people, conundrums and endings.  It cannot help but spill over into the art.

At first it's difficult to draw a hare that is anything but sweetness.  But now I admit to being a wee bit obsessed with the creepiness of these creatures, and find myself sneaking up on this painting after dark, just to be slightly startled and delighted.  More to come along this path, I think.  

Just so we don't encounter him on an actual path. :)

Thanks to COVID 19 (in all of its many, multiplying forms), we hike.  And not just hike, but go to the places where others are unlikely to go.  Over the last two-plus years, this has replaced movie theaters, restaurants, shopping, concerts, plays and all the things that used to be entertainment. Something wondrous happened inside of me because of this - a deep, intimate connection with the wildness of "out there" (wherever it may be) and a feeling of calm, peaceful ease inside my head as our feet go up and down for mile after mile of wilderness.  Even when the rain falls hard upon us.  Even when the brambles leave legs lacerated and stinging.  Even when the way seems harder than we can do.

I try to bring this back into the regular world, where sometimes things feel too hard to handle, even though my butt is in a chair and the air conditioning is keeping me cool and nothing is pushing my heart and lungs to near bursting.  Sometimes this works.  But little reminders help.

We collect treasures - bone and stone and shell and feather, wood and moss and branch.  There are little altars everywhere - vignettes of the wilderness.  They are reminders of what matters, this connection between soul and landscape, as Oliver says, that we need.  And I do love the thought that it needs us.

NUDGE-SHOVE is open through the end of August.  We hope you'll explore, linger and love the experimental art we've created, and the idea of PUSHING ourselves in response to the words of Sylvia Plath and world events.  Thanks for your support!

Artists!!!  Interested in participating in future collaborations?  Express your interest here.

We haven't solved any of the world's problems here.

But we have found a way to take the chaos of everything out there and use that energy for something else - to connect, inspire, commiserate, encourage, listen and see.  

It is our sincere hope that our art and words will touch you, dear reader.  We hope to hit a nerve, strike a chord, make a little splash.  Maybe, if we're lucky, it will inspire other small experiments in the world - nudging and shoving until our kind multiplies (Plath).

Art is about seeing.  

And the sun is in Leo: See and Be Seen.  21,915 days as a human being. And still the way I see is changing.

I've been stuck in my head, mired in the negative nonsense of the number of years I now am.  How I saw myself (in the mirror, in my mind's eye) was not always flattering (and now and then downright unkind). Until someone who loves me showed me how I look through his eyes and camera lens.  It was (is) the greatest gift.  Thank you, my love, for seeing this me in me.

This all started because I challenged myself to be exceptionally vulnerable about turning sixty.  (You know well, dear reader, how much I value vulnerability and all it brings). Which included being wiling to put my very self out there the same way I do my art, risking rejection and ridicule but going for it anyway.  Because when I am ninety and look back at sixty, I want to know that I was sixty without reservation.

What I didn't expect was to be changed by the experience.

I did not expect to feel exhilarated standing nude on a mist-shrouded beach in freezing water.  I did not expect to feel self-love cover me like a warm blanket, and the weight of inhibition to fall away like unwanted detritus.  I did not expect it to be so awkwardly and wonderfully delicious.

Days later, upon seeing the final photos, I did not expect to be overwhelmed by tears. 

What I saw in those (these) pictures was not the me I knew.  What I saw was a woman much and gently and gracefully loved.  I wanted to be her - and I was (am) her.  How could this be, that I never saw this me?

There are tears as I write these words.  To be seen changes how I see. 

Mark Nepo's words have illuminated my experiences for some years now, and these words (which I have quoted here before) are just the thing, I think, for this:

Here's to sixty, dear reader.  

​Here's to not covering up who we are, to ungloving ourselves.   

(with deep gratitude to my partner for the gift of his skills as a photographer and artist and all the things.)

Sometimes, as a storyteller/artist, I don't even know what the story is until someone like you, dear reader, comments on how the piece feels to them.  And then there is a little AHA lightbulb - it is often spot-on.  We are complicit,  you and I, in these tales woven in paint.  I like the idea that we're conspiring together.

It might be a response to the world.  Or maybe a way of working through to the words I long to have.  Or just a delicious journey of destruction.

Whatever the reason, there are more to come.  And once you get started down this rabbit hole, there is no stopping.

And while my thoughts are fermenting, the art is expanding.  A new show is coming (shhhhhhhh!  It's a little secret!  Details soon!) and it's pushing me in the studio.   If you'd like to be notified when the show begins, subscribe (in the column on the right) and you'll get a little notice in your in-box. :). 

If you've also been struggling for words lately, leave a little comment below.  Maybe we can all help each other figure out exactly what words might  be best right now.