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Newsletter September 2010

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Newsletter September 2010

NEWSLETTER September 2010

Greetings from the mountains of western Maine!

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!
(from "Autumn Fires" by Robert Louis Stevenson, out of A Child's Garden of Verses, 1885)

Our lives are in transition again, from summer to fall, from planting to harvest, from flowers in the meadow to fires in the woodstove. I am watching the leaves falling and finishing my collection of butterfly drawings from this past summer. We have had such a dry summer, we can’t even think about having an autumn bonfire, but I am glad to have the woodstove going again.

Here are two more butterfly beauties for you to look at, a northern pearly-eye and a great spangled fritillary. (Isn’t that a wonderful name?) They are both brush-footed butterflies, so they walk on four legs instead of six. The pearly–eye is a small butterfly, but the fritillary is almost as large as a monarch. I caught the fritillary on a meadowsweet flower in my reference photo, so you can see in the drawing here that it has its proboscis uncurled to sip the nectar. The drawings were both done with colored pencil on paper.

A butterfly gives us a wonderful image of transformation. The process of metamorphosis from caterpillar to winged adult is so complex, and the final result so different from the beginning. And the change all happens in secret, hidden away inside the chrysalis, in a time of quiet rest. Sometimes I could wish that the transitions in my own life were as quiet!

Our old farmhouse here is seeing a time of transformation, as we do some major weatherization on it. This process requires clearing the collections from past generations out of the attics and basements. That has reverberated into my studio, too. I have decided to have a grand STUDIO SALE between now and the end of the year, so you can be watching for bargains.

To begin with, I am closing out my Moments of Transcendence collection. I painted more than 130 of these round miniatures over a two-year period. I have 66 of them remaining now. The originals are for sale for $25 each. (If you buy four of them, I will give you one for free.) I have posted photos of the originals that I have left, on my website at http://betsy-bell.artistwebsites.com/.. You can also buy prints of them from the website. They can be framed as collections or cut apart and framed as individual 4”x 4” squares. If you want any, just email me and tell me which ones you want.

My gift to you this month is a file of a stephanogram from the collection, the single peony flower. I give you permission to print or reproduce this image as you choose. It will print actual size (3” diameter) at 200 dpi.

For more information on the Moments of Transcendence collection, my artmaking process, or recent work, or to check out my blog, see my website at http://betsy-bell.artistwebsites.com/.. Here you can order prints of my work, and have them matted and framed if you choose, courtesy of Fine Art America’s great print-on-demand service. They also offer greeting cards, either single or in packages.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…. (“Transformed” is the Greek word metamorphoômai, from which we get the English word metamorphosis.)
(The Bible, Romans 12:2)

Thanks for joining me in the journey. I hope that you enjoy looking at the art as much as I have enjoyed making it! I would love to hear from you, too, so please do reply with comments.

Betsy