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NEWSLETTER April 2010

Greetings from the mountains of western Maine!

Spring is coming on like a freight train this year, ahead of its usual schedule. In the past week, the new blooms in the woods include the shadbush, trillium, trout lily, and Dutchman’s breeches, and in the yard we have narcissus, bleeding heart, forget-me-nots, purple azalea (the first of all the azaleas), and plum tree. The summer residents have been returning, one after another. In the mornings the woods are so full of bird songs that the very air seems charged with life.

One annual spring treat here is having fiddleheads for supper. We have a patch of ostrich fern, Matteuccia struthiopteris, growing by the stone wall near the shop. This is the classic “fiddlehead” fern, producing the tightly curled sprouts that rapidly unfurl into great graceful ostrich plumes. The image you see here is a drawing of ostrich fern fiddleheads from my study book.

Did you ever get one of those party favors when you were a kid, the kind that you blow on and it unrolls with a loud BRAAAAPPP sound? The ferns seem to uncoil the same way, from a tight Archimedean spiral, as if spring itself were blowing on its roots. They grow so quickly you can almost see them uncurling as you watch.

The taste of fiddleheads is similar to asparagus. Thorough cooking (ten minutes if you boil them, twenty if you steam them) reduces the bitterness and some of the components of them that are said to not be good for us. If you are going to pick fiddleheads, pick only three per plant and leave the rest, so the plant will continue to thrive.

Spring has its mysteries, too. Last week my husband Steve was cleaning up the chips and sawdust left from a winter of cutting and splitting firewood. When he was getting to the bottom of the pile, I heard him calling, “Betsy, come look! I just broke something!” He had found a huge, fresh-looking, white-shelled egg buried in the sawdust. His rake had clipped it and the shell was cracked, showing the clear white and the yolk inside. It apparently had never been brooded; it looked as fresh as a chicken egg from the grocery store. But it was almost four inches long!

Now this is a real mystery. Whose egg was it? And how did it get buried in our sawdust pile? The two biggest birds we see are the turkeys and the vultures. Both of them have eggs that are speckled with brown, as far as I know. This egg was white. We do have neighbors half a mile up the valley who keep geese. The only thing I can figure is that maybe someone stole that egg from them, carried it down here, and hid it. If you have a better idea, let me know.

We do have red foxes. I saw one just recently, heading from our property back to its den on the other side of the road. And I found a story online, complete with photos, about a fox stealing goose eggs and hiding one for herself after she had fed her family. (You can go see it at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-466429/Daring-raid-vixen-swims-river-times-steal-eggs-gooses-nest.html.) So the evidence would possibly suggest that a fox put that egg there. But this valley is certainly full of secret lives and doings that we know nothing about.

Right now I am dividing my time between making art about fiddleheads in my study book and finishing a large oil composition about the white pines. I am painting this on a panel, using painting knives, and trying to apply what I have been learning about light and color. I will show it to you in the next newsletter, when it is finished.

In my original newsletter I have attached a file of a fiddlehead art card for you to print. The original is a miniature oil painting. Art cards (or ACEO’s) are a collectible form of miniature art the same size as a baseball trading card. Print this one on good stiff photo paper, cut it out, and start your own collection, if you wish. I give you permission to print or reproduce this image as you choose. If you would like to receive my emailed newsletter, send me a message at bgbell@gmail.com.

For more information on “Swift River Treasures,” my art-making 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. I also offer greeting cards, either single or in packages.

Always be looking for the unexpected in nature—you can have no formulas for anything; search constantly…. I don’t know of a better definition of an artist than one who is eternally curious. (Charles Hawthorne, from the introduction to Hawthorne on Painting)

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

4-21-2010

Mysteries

This week my husband Steve was cleaning up the wood waste left from a winter of cutting and splitting firewood. The pile of rough “sawdust” from the chainsaw and chips from the splinter stood about three feet deep at the peak and covered an area about four by eight feet. When he was getting to the end of the pile, I heard him calling, “Betsy, come look! I just broke something!” I went to look.

It was an egg, a huge, fresh-looking, white-shelled egg that was buried in the sawdust. His rake had clipped it and the shell was cracked, showing the clear white and the yolk inside. It apparently had never been brooded; it looked as fresh as a chicken egg from the grocery store. But it was almost four inches long!

Now this is a real mystery. Whose egg was it? And how did it get buried in our sawdust pile? The two biggest birds we see are the turkeys and the vultures. Both of them have eggs that are speckled with brown, as far as I know. This egg was white, although it had sawdust stuck all over it. We do have neighbors half a mile up the valley who keep geese. The only thing I can figure is that maybe someone stole that egg from them, carried it down here, and hid it. If you have a better idea, let me know.

We do have foxes, and I saw one a few days ago, heading from our property back to its den on the other side of the road. And I found a story online, complete with photos, about a fox stealing goose eggs and hiding one for herself after she had fed her family. You can go see it at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-466429/Daring-raid-vixen-swims-river-times-steal-eggs-gooses-nest.html. So the evidence would possibly suggest that it was a fox who put that egg there. But this valley is certainly full of secret lives and doings that we know nothing about.

Very early this morning, well before dawn, I heard hooves clop-clopping southward down the road we live on. Now who was that, and where were they going? I doubt that it was a local equestrian out for a little starlight spin with their horse. I expect it was a moose, maybe more than one from the sound of it. I know that somebody saw it, because a while later I heard it clopping northward again, and it was met by a southbound truck. The clopping stopped as the truck came down the valley. The truck stopped, with a loud squeal of brakes. Silence. A few more cautious clops. And finally the truck started southbound again, very slowly.

In the winter, the fresh snow has stories to tell, if I could only read the tracks I find. But I am like a preschooler perusing a copy of Moby Dick. I can recognize a few letters here and there—“A, B, X”—but I sure can’t read the story. I heard a great bass voice hoo-hoo-h-hooing out in the woods a couple of nights ago, but who was it? (I believe it was the male great horned owl.) The longer I live here, the more I learn. And the more I realize I don’t know. I am okay with that. I never get bored. And what is life without a bit of mystery, anyway?

Winter Reprise (Fickle April)

My husband just came into my studio and threw a snowball at me. This is so wrong for April!

April is fickle, and winter is not done with us yet. We woke up two mornings ago to a wintry white world again. Four inches of snow had fallen overnight, and it kept falling all morning. It is almost all melted now, but Steve did manage to scrape together enough for a good-size snowball.

I heard a great horned owl out in the deep woods across the road again last night. This time it was a great bass voice, lower than the ones I have heard up until now. Apparently the big daddy has checked in. This may reduce our groundhog population some more.

Here is a continuation of the spring log:

April 13
White-throated sparrow back
Mountainsides changing color
(trees blooming)
Dutchman’s breeches emerging
Greens in cold frame emerging
Garden plants sprouting in pots in the kitchen
Bloodroot still blooming
Chinodoxa blooming in flower bed
Saw a red fox
Lawn green (grass and weeds)

April 16
First fiddleheads up (small ones, near porch)

April 17
SNOW!!

Spring Progress (4-7-2010)

I went out for a long ramble this afternoon, looking for signs of spring. The sun is out, the sky is blue with puffy white clouds, the temperature is 75 degrees, and all is right with the world. Winter seems to have retreated far behind, just in the past week, and spring is in full voice a couple of weeks ahead of when I would expect it around here.

The photo is the bloodroot patch by the creek in full bloom. What could be more beautiful?

I have been keeping a log of spring progress, and it is amazing to me how much has changed just since April began. Here it is:

April 1
Primrose leaves growing
Song sparrows
Groundhog out
Chipmunk out
Silver maple blooming
Daffodils up 2-6”
Onions growing in garden
Egyptian onions sprouting
Last small patches of snow melting on the slopes
Vultures are back

April 2
Bloodroot emerging
Bleeding heart emerging
Cardinal
Robin
Nuthatch
Birches and aspen blooming
Wood frogs croaking
Spring peeper chorus started
Mourning cloak butterfly
Wasp
Slug
Turkeys (at a neighbor’s house), male displaying grandly
Lots of bugs and beetles showing up

April 3
Phoebes are back
Chives up 2”
Mourning doves singing
Somebody screaming hoarsely in the front yard at 3:00 a.m. (who? Later in the day I heard 2 great horned owls hoo-hooing at each other out behind June’s place.)
First bloodroot blooming
First daffodils blooming (under the mulberry trees)
Violet leaves emerging
Woodpecker calling
Forsythia beginning to bloom
Leaves beginning to emerge on shrubs and brambles
Meadow rue emerging

April 7
Bloodroot in full bloom
Trout lily leaves up
Rhubarb emerging
Red trillium emerging
Lady’s mantle unfolding
Wild onions up
Willows greening
Pussywillows already gone by
Daffodils in full bloom
Forsythia in full bloom

4-1-2010

I have woken up to the sound of bird song the past two mornings. Our winter residents are tuning up and our summer residents are beginning to arrive. Yesterday I heard two song sparrows duking it out in melody. This morning I heard chickadees, the song sparrow again, and a cardinal, and another bird that I think might have been an oriole. The turkey vultures are back, too.

A local chipmunk was scurrying around the garage yesterday. That is the first I have seen a chipmunk this spring. Today while I ate lunch I watched the first groundhog nosing around the back yard. He wasn’t eating the green shoots that are just starting to come up in the lawn; he was just walking around looking at things. He was a brown groundhog, unlike the blonde race we usually see in our yard, so I am not sure where he spent the winter. But he seemed to think that the shed out back might make good summer lodgings, and was giving it a careful look-see.

The snow on the mountains is almost a memory now. Only a few dirty white patches remain. We had three days of rain this week, so the Swift River is up about as high as we ever see it. The Androscoggin River is high too, drowning the trees at the edge of the banks. I have not gone to see it yet, but I imagine that the Rumford falls are really roaring now. This time of year it sends up great plumes of mist and really looks like it lives up to its reputation of being the highest falls east of Niagara.

Newsletter March 2010

Greetings from the mountains of western Maine!

March has been all about seeing. You know those big signs they put on the driver’s ed. cars, the ones that say, “student driver”? I should be wearing one on my hat. I have been learning to see, and I feel like I am back in kindergarten, and I am enjoying it immensely. This month has not been “productive” in terms of shareable, saleable art output. But it has been a very important one in laying foundations for the work I will be doing next. The “seeing” has been going on in two arenas, in how I see the earth around me and in how I see the light that illumines it.

Last fall when I was in Cleveland I picked up a book called Seeing Nature at a used book sale for twenty-five cents, and it was a quarter well spent. Reading this book is changing the way I look at the world around me. It was written by Paul Krafel, a naturalist, educator, and former park ranger. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend that you find a copy of it and take a thoughtful look. You will find Krafel on the internet at http://www.chrysalischarterschool.com/Paul/index.html.

Seeing Nature is about how nature works as a unified system, and the implications this has for us humans. (The subtitle is “Deliberate encounters with the visible world.”) In the chapter “Seeing Further into the Fourth Dimension” I found a fascinating concept that I have been able to apply to the land we live on here in the Swift River valley.

This property was a working farm when the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth. But over the past few generations it has been left to grow back into what it was and still wants to be, a northern hardwood forest. It was not abandoned all at once, though, so each piece shows the evidence of its stage in the succession of regrowth.

Around the house we still have lawn, which is shorn regularly all summer, just like when it was farmland. Then there is abandoned lawn, which is turning back to meadow, and beginning to grow wildflowers and brambles and small shrubbery. Then we have the abandoned meadow, which is now growing small pines and aspen trees, the sun-loving species. And where the pines and aspens have grown to maturity, there is an understory of beech, oak, and sugar maple coming along, ready to take their places.

You can see the different parts of the property as a continuum in space—farm, meadow, softwoods, hardwoods. Or you can move your eyes through space and see into time. The areas that are now growing hardwood were once stands of small pine and aspen saplings, which were once meadow, which were once plowed fields. I can “see” backward in time to what my woods once looked like, and forward in time to what my lawn will look like in 100 years if we don’t mow it! This “time travel” seeing helps me to understand better how to take care of this place and how to cooperate with its innate patterns.

And about seeing light: Years ago I saw a light-filled painting by a current-day American impressionist and I thought, “I have GOT to learn to paint like that.” Finally the resources have caught up with me and I have been applying myself to really learn to see light and color. And I am producing some paintings—simple studies of colored blocks in the sunshine—that I am happier with than any oil paintings I have done so far.

Since this newsletter is already getting long enough, I am not going to go into more detail about this today. If you want more, you can see the blog titled “Boogie Chillen” which is available at the following link: http://betsy-bell.artistwebsites.com/blogs/boogie-chillen.html. There are photos there, too. And I am sure that you will be hearing more about this in newsletters to come.

I have attached a file of an art card here for you. This one is a miniature oil painting of the view across the road from the end of our driveway in the winter. I call it “Fox Den Hill” because the local foxes have their den someplace just on the other side. Art cards (or ACEO’s) are a collectible form of miniature art the same size as a baseball trading card. Print this one on good stiff photo paper, cut it out, and start your own collection, if you wish. I give you permission to print or reproduce this image as you choose.

For more information on “Swift River Treasures,” my artmaking process, or recent work, or to check out my blog, see my new website at http://betsy-bell.artistwebsites.com/index.html. Fine Art America has started formatting their artists’ pages into individual websites in addition to their FAA page. It has my own header on it, but through this site you can still access FAA’s great print-on-demand service with optional matting and framing. They also sell greeting cards with my work on them.

Begin the work even though you cannot see the path by which this work can lead to your goal. (Paul Krafel, in Seeing Nature)

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

3-12-2010

“Boogie Chillen”

Do you know the old blues song “Boogie Chillen” sung by John Lee Hooker? “Let that boy boogie woogie, ´cause it’s in him and it got to come out!” Well, the rainbow is in me and it got to come out. The images you see here are some simple studies of colored blocks that I have painted in the past couple of weeks, done for practice in seeing light and color.

Years ago I saw a painting by a current-day American impressionist and I thought, “I have GOT to learn to paint like that.” I don’t mean just painting with an “impressionistic” technique. I am talking about really seeing light and color accurately and being able to express it with paint. Finally the resources have caught up with me and I have been applying myself to really learn to see. And I am producing some paintings—simple block studies—that I am happier with than any oil paintings I have done so far.

Some writers write prose. Some write poetry. And some write both. My nature study drawings are my prose. These light and color paintings are sheer poetry. They are not literal, like the prose. They don’t give you information about every surface detail and every nuance of form. But they give you a picture of what happens when the light hits an object. And it is, like a figure of speech, somehow truer than the literal truth about the object, a direct and spontaneous interpretation of how it hits me at that moment.

The real subject of the painting is the light, not the object you see. And that is something that I have been reaching for ever since I first picked up a paintbrush. When I was in my early teens, going to classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art, I took an outdoor watercolor painting class. I remember one painting in particular that I did, a simple sketch of a path with patterns of sunlight and tree shadows on it. And as I remember it was that painting that got the attention of my instructor and moved him to suggest that I be accepted into the special invitation-only classes that the museum had for teens. I’m still on the same track, looking at patterns of light and shadow.

To be able to express the weather and the time of day by the quality of the light in a painting, to show what the light is doing, to somehow convey to you the singing that happens in my heart when I look at something beautiful—that is what I am after.

You know what a red block looks like. You know the color we call “red.” Some artists paint light and shadow using a formula: add white to the red for the sunlit plane and add black to the red for the shadow plane, or something like that. The impressionist way of painting a red block says, ‘What color is that warm plane in the sun really? Orange? Pink? What color can I use to really convey the warmth of the sunlight and the truth of what my eyes are seeing?” The actual color of an object in the light is influenced by so many factors: the kind of light, the angle at which the light hits it, the colors of objects around it, how much moisture is in the air. No formula will encompass all these parameters. It becomes a matter of learning to really see what is in front of you, without preconceptions. And I should be wearing a big sign that says, “Caution—student painter,” like they put on the driver’s ed. cars.

The other issue I am dealing with is my penchant for surface detail and my facility with a brush. I have purposely switched to using a painting knife for these paintings so that I have to paint simply and directly. I want to focus on the light, not the objects, and in this case the surface detail would only get in my way. I can leave the painstaking description for when I am drawing, and be free to respond to the light and color when I am painting. I honestly enjoy painting with a knife; I like how uncomplicated and un-fussy it is.

I am not going to stop doing the naturalist thing, being the illustrator and making pages in my study book about the treasures I find in our valley. But I am going to occasionally cut loose to interpret what I find for you in terms of light and color, painting the poetry of it as well as the prose, as I get better at seeing it. Boogie!

BIOGRAPHY
My artist grandfather gave me a sketchbook for my first birthday. I sold my first painting when I was in my early teens. Art has always been a part of my life.
I have spent most of the last thirty-five years as a homemaker and mother, raising my family and homeschooling my children. Even so, I always found time and resources for art: fiber arts, drawing, painting, calligraphy, printmaking, and graphic design.
I have a B.A. in studio art from the University of Maine at Augusta. I have been an art gallery manager and a business consultant. My work has been shown in galleries and public buildings in Ohio, Maryland and Maine, and I have work in private collections in many parts of the country.
I live in a 180-year-old farmhouse in the woods of western Maine.

I went for a walk down by the stream today, right behind the house. It was the quintessential spring day: sunny, balmy, and pleasant. The snow here in the valley is almost all melted now, except for the shady spots. The mountain slopes have snow on them yet, but it is getting visibly thin. Early this winter we had intense cold, but little snow. And we finished the winter with unusually warm sunny days, and still little snow. We already look like April, when it is only the middle of March.

I found some fresh new crinkly primrose leaves just beginning to poke up above the old dead leaves out on our “Primrose Path.” My mother-in-law planted them many years ago. The catkins on the shrubbery right by the stream were beginning to enlarge and extend and show bright yellow green in between the dark spots. I hit one with my hand and a cloud of yellow pollen drifted away on the breeze.

I sat for a while and just watched the water ripple by. A chickadee came up behind me so close that I thought he was going to land on me. I heard his wings fluttering right behind my head and turned to look at him. He took his time looking me over, too, giving a quiet little “cheep” from time to time. I also heard a nuthatch, but I didn’t see him.

The wildlife has been out and about early, too. In the past couple of weeks we have seen a fox, a deer, a skunk, a squirrel, a pair of mourning doves, and a turkey vulture. The chipmunks have not roused themselves out of their burrows yet. I don’t know how many more tick-less days we will have, but I am going to enjoy it while it lasts.

I am thinking about gardening, and putting some lettuce in my cold frame….

NEWSLETTER February 2010

Greetings from the mountains of western Maine!

First, the unfinished business: I am done with the painting that I was working on last fall when I had to leave for Cleveland. I painted it in several successive layers. You can see the progression here, from the first underpainting to its current state.

This is a 20” diameter oil painting on canvas. The image is taken from the watercolor that I did of the asters and butterfly, but it zeroes in on the butterfly and one flower. I started out with bright colors and simple shapes in the underpainting, and gradually refined them until I was satisfied that I had said what I wanted to say. I like the profusion of petals and the way the light hits them. I am fascinated with light and what it does to color, so I am planning some concentrated study in that area next.

The remainder of February was spent studying the white pine, the gentle giant of the northeastern conifers. Its needles are long and soft instead of aggressively sharp or stiff like other pines, and it can grow one hundred feet tall or more. The white pine is the Maine state tree, and the pine cone and tassel is our state flower. You can see my study book page about white pines here on my Fine Art America site.

White pines are inextricably bound with Maine’s history. They have formed a major part in many industries here over the years. Because its soft, light wood does not warp or crack as easily as other trees, it has found its way into buildings, cabinets, furniture, boxes, and patterns as well as the masts of ships.

The living room in our 180-year-old farmhouse is paneled with the original “pumpkin pine” boards taken from the loft floor when the house was remodeled. Pumpkin pine is the deep orange heartwood of old growth pine trees. The boards over our fireplace mantel are slightly less than twenty-four inches wide.

In American colonial days, all good trees two feet or more in diameter on land not previously granted to a private individual were reserved for masts for His Majesty’s Royal Navy. A fine of £100 was levied against anyone who cut a tree marked with the King’s “broad arrow.” So boards in Mainer’s homes were never, ever more than twenty-four inches wide, even if they came from a larger tree. They were carefully trimmed to remove any possibility of incriminating evidence!

If you would like to receive an email of my newsletter with the free art card file attached, send me a message and I would be delighted to oblige you.
This time the art card image is one of “pine candles,” the pale green shoots on the pine tree branch tips in the spring. It was digitally reworked from a 3” diameter round miniature. Art cards (or ACEO’s) are a collectible form of miniature art the same size as a baseball trading card. Print this one on good stiff photo paper, cut it out, and start your own collection, if you wish. I give you permission to print or reproduce this image as you choose.

For more information on “Swift River Treasures,” my art-making process, or recent work, or to check out my blog, see my website at http://betsy-bell.fineartamerica.com. Fine Art America offers a great print-on-demand service with optional matting and framing. They also sell greeting cards with my work on them.

This month’s collector’s tip is from my friend Pat Chandler, a career professional artist in Norway, Maine. You can see her work at http://www.chandlerfineart.com. She asked me to stress how important it is to an artist to get feedback from collectors, and how the relationship between artist and art-lover develops. “Many clients have repeatedly told me how important the artworks they've bought from me are to them. So I have taken opportunities, like holidays, to write notes and say in some way how meaningful it is to me to know that. I find some way to acknowledge that we have become part of each others' lives.”

I would like to paint the way a bird sings. (Claude Monet)

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

(to recieve a monthly newsletter from me, just sent me an email and I will add you to my list.)