June show at Tidemark Gallery

Some paintings in the June Tidemark Gallery show in Waldoboro.  Ever month I put different paintings in the gallery six to ten paintings, watercolors and acrylics, according to size and space.

Corners #2  16 x 20

Corners #1  16 x 20

Yellow Triangle  30 x 20

Yellow Triangles  10 x 30

Sacred Geometry #6  20 x 16

Yellow Triangle Blue Square 16 x20

Coastal Islands  14 x 18 

Low Clouds Over Marsh  18 x 24

Road scene Spring  12 x 16

Snow Bank  14 x 21

Vacant House  16 x 20

Shore Dock  14 x 18

River Scene  16 x 20

Sun on Outcrop 11 x14

Trees Beside the Shore  9 x 12

Building Clouds  16 x 20

Cove Shore Spring  18 x 24

Dog in the Field  12 x 16

Rocky Shore  9 x 12

West Side of the Island  24 x 36

Tidemark Gallery Show
The weather had been beautiful, and certainly appreciated after the cold and snow of winter. I too am gaining strength thanks to the Pacemaker that  saved my life. In deed it was quite a winter.  I have been in the garden, weeding, preparing the beds and planting vegetables. I still get tired but am doing better then a month ago. Life is full of surprises and the best thing to do is live each day the best you can and enjoy it. I go with the flow. The glass is half full.
The only gallery I am in is Tidemark in Waldoboro. Not much happens in this town so very few people come into the gallery, but it is my home town and I support it and want it to prosper. I have the June show so I will have about 30 paintings up. The opening is June 6, 5-7 pm.  I will have both my realistic and abstract paintings. Please come see my work. As much as I enjoy painting I also like to share it with others. It is the way I communicate about how much I love the place I live.

Dandelions and Forsythia
My driveway in spring, lawn covered with dandelions which I like.

Circling Gulls
Sometimes I see the gulls circling over the shore near the water. I don't know why they do this. I saw this scene with the light on the building and driveway and love the composition. The painting is not in the show because it is an not a standard size and I don't have a frame but it is a recent painting.

Cottages by the Shore
These cottages were built a long time ago, before all the regulations of being to close to the shore.

Island in the Cove
I walk to this spot all the time and swim off the rocks in the summer.

Corners #2

Green Circle

Blue circle

Blue Triangle

My hospital experience

Boo likes people food

Boo likes to sleep on my lap

In the hospital

The pacemaker in my chest Saint Patty Day

March 21 2015

Saturday I woke up in my own comfortable bed and looked out the window to see snow flakes coming down. Not very  spring like.  What a month it has been. I had not been paying any attention to the signs that led to heart failure. I had shortness of breath and would have to rest after I did anything physicle. I had little energy. I felt ok when I was quiet. I had no idea my heart was racing and beating irregularly. February's snow and cold descended. I shoveled and rested, I walked the dog and rested. I rested after everything I did. I got the wood in and filled the pellet stove. I was warm and comfortable. I painted. I had a fall on one of the walks but felt ok in a day or two. My left leg became swollen and I thought it was because  of the fall. I went to the hospital and they found my heart racing. The long shot of it is They kept me there and tried to get the heartbeat into a manageable  rate. I was sent to Portland where they have more equipment to test everything. My body was filled with fluid and I had medicine to get that out.. The pulse was irregular and beating 100 to 150 per minute but they were getting it down. Then when I thought I was going to sleep in the evening I went into cardiac arrest and I woke up to all these people around my bed. My ribs hurt and they told me they had done cpr on me. The next day during another test my heat went into the fibulation again. I remember going into a darkness. They sapped me and I woke up like out of a dream and I was so glad to be awake. At this point they put in a temporary pacemaker. A couple of days later the real pacemaker was put in, a three hour operation. I was black and blue and it hurt to move my arm. It seemed like every half hour I was having my blood pressure taken and blood taken from the veins for tests. I was on a  Monitor at the front desk where they keep tract of everyone. The medicines and pacemaker helped the heart to work better and all was well. 

Then I developed a rash as a reaction to the dye they put in my veins . My whole body began to itch. It is still itchy. My friends came to visit and brought me flowers, and Doug came every other day. I read and slept and was not bored. The nurses were great, I had good care. I was discharged on Thursday and Doug brought me home.

Saturday afternoon friends came to dinner, Ed and Virginia brought roast pork with baked apples and cabbage. There was roasted potatoes and mixed vegetables and Christina made a carrot cake. MY friend Nancy came up with Christina, Merritt my neighbor came so there were seven of us around the table and we had a good time talking and eating.

I am weak and need lots of sleep. I have been outside and taken short walks with Doug. Doug is taking good care of me. 

Many thanks to all my friends that have sent birthday and well wishes for my recovery.I was overwhelmed to hear from so many people. Thank you again. I am blessed to have so many friends that care about me.

Audrey

Drifts and Icicles

The following was written by Henry Beston
The secret of snow is the beauty of the curve. In no other manifestation of nature is the curve revealed in an almost abstract purity as a part of the visible mystery and splendor of the world. What I think of , as I set down these lines, is the intense and almost glowing line which a great dune of snow lifts against the blue radiance of the morning after a storm, that high, clear, and incomparable crest which is mathematics and magic, snow and the wind.  How many times have I paused to stare at such a summit when I have found it barring my way at a turn of the unploughed country road! It is when winds are strong, temperatures low, and the snow almost power-dry that you will see such monuments of winter at their best. Dunes of sand obey the same complex of laws, but the heaver sand does not have the aerial grace of the bodiless and radiant crystal wnich builds the snow against the sky.
Henry Beston lived near here on Damariscotta Lake.
I will certainly remember this winter for the drifts.
Sunday February 15
I was all excited about the blizzard but it didn't develop like they predicted. The wind however is blowing hard and I am not going out until later to walk the dog or maybe not. I do have to bring in some wood for the stove.

front of the house

icicles in front of door, not shoveled

large icicle and snow bank

ther is a path through there to the mud room door.

Even with the wind snow clumps cling to branches. Seen from my back window.

There are 4 windows in the front of the house that are part of the original structure, this being one. Ice patterns form on them.

Snow and more snow

How do you like this snow? It is beautiful out there and nature is quite the artist, wind swept drifts and tree ladened branches so heavy with snow some are bowed down and frozen to the ground. Doug came up to visit and watch the Super bowl with me. It was the most exciting finish I have ever seen in a game. One minute before the end I though the Patriots were going to loose and then the interception and they won. They will be talking about this game for years. It was fun to have Doug to watch the game with. The next day another foot of snow. Doug shoveled it this time, lucky he was here. He also shoveled snow up around the foundation to keep the wind out.
It continues to be cold and I have to let the water run or drip so the pipes don't freeze at night.  I like snow but not the cold.  The good thing is I have to walk the dog so I do get outside everyday. Well the house is warm, with the wood stove and pellet stove and I have oil backup.
There was another storm, 7 inches of snow and Doug went home after that one. While he was here and not shoveling he showed me what I have to do to prepair to sell my paintings on ebay. Hopfully he can figure it out and I can make some sales.
I have been painting, all geometric abstracts, but this snow is so beautiful I want to paint a snow scene.

blue circle 16 x 20

blue triangle 16 x 20

yellow triangles 20 x 30

sacred geometry #6   16 x 20

buried mailbox  They all look like this

Putting away Christmas treasures.

January 13
The morning dawned clear and cold, blue shadows dividing the ground into shapes that define the contour of the earth covered with snow. The year started off with a bang as we watch and listen to the events happening in France. As horrendous as this act was it has brought forth compassion in people all over the world that actions against peaceful people who express themselves with words or pictures, will not be tolerated. Expression of freedom, of love is what the world wants.

Christmas is over and I have put away the decorations and symbols for another year. Even though I keep everything up longer then most people it is a sad time when I take it down. What gives me the most pleasure is seeing and reacting to my surroundings. Christmas can always be experienced as a child sees it, full of wonder and magic. I love each decoration on the tree, the beautiful cards and wrapping paper on the boxes, the living tree and the smell of balsam. I love the lights inside and out that glow in the darkness. Santa is a symbol of all the good qualities of a human, Christ is the symbol of the light in all of us.

As I get older, I am weaker, have less energy, mind the cold more. It takes more time to do everything. The physical body is aging. I have to be carful not to slip on the rocks in summer or ice in the winter, things I never ever thought about when I was young. Thank goodness painting is not a physically stressful occupation. The problem is I don't get up often enough and move around.

Perhaps the biggest problem now is what to do with all the paintings, stacked everywhere, hundreds of them. I love and live to paint, everything excites me so I keep making paintings but I don't sell many so they have accumulated, in closets, against walls, under beds, everywhere. You say,  put them in galleries. Because I have negative approach of rejection from galleries and have alway disliked their taking so much commission up to 50 precent, I project subconsously this to them from me so of course they don't want my paintings. This is a strange dilemma, because I like my own work, as all artist like their work, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. Perhaps this is not what I should be talking about, because I have survived all these years, I have done and do what I love to do. I am living a great life, living in a beautiful place, and have loving family and friends. But all these paintings, what to do with them, any suggestions.

I wrap empty boxes in nice paper and put them under the tree then store them for next year. 

Doug's sculpture with santa

I made this elf doll about 50 years ago

After playing with the lights I am tired

corners 1 16 x 20

corners 2  16 x 20

Can you guess what the corners are?