Ice Fishing

Fish Collection. This is going to be the official Poster for the National Ocean Sciences Bowl coming to Milwaukee in April.

Female Brown trout out of Lake Michigan with the help of a Mr. Eric Haataja.

First Northern brought through the ice on a tip-up in the Mississippi River.

Tiny perch.

Digging for Potatoes

Digging for Potatoes

Hours Old

Hatched

The Runt

Hatching

 

 

Turtle Parade

Last week, Andy and I decided to split up the house and garden chores and so he went off the dig up our potatoes and I forget what I was supposed to do but shortly after starting, Andy called me over to see what he had discovered in the dirt.  I looked down and noticed the soil moving around in spooky sort of way and it took a second to register what we were seeing.  It turns out that he had come upon a turtle nest just as it was hatching. There they all were, 14 of them, some out of their eggs, some still in and a few in transition.  It as amazing to see. Andy just started laughing, to me he says, "I know what you are doing the rest of the day, get painting!"  So we gathered them in trays and gave them some water and sure as anything, I panted all 14.  We let them go in the river a few at a time and only one didn't make it, the runt.  I still cannot get over how miraculous the timing was in this venture. amazing.

Door County Plien Air Competition

I know that these aren't be best photographs of these but they are what I have.

I must say that I was so excited about doing this show all year. I meant so much to be able to attend. It was hard to put it into words but a friend helped me figure it out. I was  so important because from sun up to sun down, my only role was artist.  I wasn't responsible fro anything but  myself and what I made and although that intensity was heavy, it was also very pure and freeing.

Plein Air Workout

Amish Sunday

Genoa Bluff

Stubborn tree and house

So, I have to prepare for this coming Door County Plein Air event in July. Here are some of my better attempts.  If there is one thing I have learned from dating a hard-core plein air painter, it is that I am just not built for exposing myself to the elements for the sake of art.  If I am cold- then that is all I can think about, if the sun and wind dry out my paint - then I get furious, and God help me if there are mosquitoes. 

I much prefer my portrait painting ventures, where I go into some one's comfy house, they ask if I want coffee, I say 'yes, thank you' and we sit, enjoy each others' company and I get to paint. Doesn't that sound so much better? Oh, but where's the romance in that? We must suffer as artists,  paint while standing in the pounding rain, work for hours in a dingy studio with bad lighting and no heat and be a slave to our overwhelming desire to create, no matter what the circumstances. 

Yes, I take cream and sugar, you are too kind.

The Last of the Garden

heirloom eggplant

tiny beets

     The last things we collected from the near frozen ground outside were some last ditch radishes.  Sad, it's all over. But, alas, the newest Seed Saver catalog came in the mail today. Tonight will be spent passing it back and forth with a pen in hand to circle next years potential harvest.  I miss green already.

    Our motto this fall, as far as the garden is concerned is, "Next Year." -often said with short authority.  One of us will make a suggestion to improve things like, "Maybe we should space out the tomatoes more" or "look at this recipe for red currant wine" or "we should plant an apple orchard". To that we say, "Next Year".  This statement is not meant to push things further off so as to not deal with them, no quite the opposite.  It is a vow to embrace all of the before mentioned possibilities with a fervent sense that we can do anything................................ next year.

River Journal, opening and new work

5 Legged Katydid

Mini Perch

Back to the Crappie Hole

Thirteen-Lined Ground Squirrel

On September 2nd, I had an opening featuring the River Journal work at the Sharon Lynn Wilson Center in Brookfield Wisconsin.  It was hot and muggy and the air conditioning broke down but still, people were brave and came anyway.(THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO CAME)  I was a little nervous, seeing at it was all new work, going in a new direction and I had never really done that kind of thing before - made that kind of change and then stand there and see if people except it.  But I made it and the responses where more than I could have hoped for.

I hung 49 new pieces and watched as folks took to time to read the journal entries written on them.  How invasive, but of course I was asking for it.  I was most sensitive about the writing, painting I know I can do, writing, I think I can do.  But I was very encouraged by all of the responses, so the wind is now at my back and I am doing more. I have no choice, I have another show in a week.... here's what I have that's new so far.

River Journal, New Project

Broken Turtle

Clump of Sod

Flicker Back

Flicker Belly

Found Fish

Four Feathers and a Bluegill

 

Robin with open wings


This is the new project. I am spending the summer out on the Mississippi River in Vernon County, WI. I am finding a ton of things to paint: animals washed up from the flooding, fish we've caught, road kill and other treasures  It's important to stress that all of it is done from direct observation but nothing was killed in order for me to paint it.