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I’m working, and other falsifications

In which our heroine blows off painting for a walk in the Maine woods.

Breaking Storm, by Carol L. Douglas, 48X30. It’s finished, so perhaps I deserved a day off.

I had every intention of working on the Fourth of July. It’s one of the best business days at Camden harbor. At such times plein air painting becomes performance art. It drives some painters mad to be interrupted constantly. I don’t mind.

Still, something Poppy Balser told me has been resonating. She’s taken the summer off from events to spend time with her kids. My youngest is twenty and has a summer job. However, this may be the last summer he comes home from college.
Rock hound with his dad.
This child is a rock hound. He loves picking the stuff up and turning it in his hands, puzzling out its story. He goes to school in the Genesee Valley of New York. Its red Medina sandstone is great for building gloomy Gothic insane asylums, but not so good for mineral or gem inclusions.
Mt. Apatite pit mine.
Van Reid is the author of a series of witty historical novels about coastal Maine. Last winter he told me about an abandoned feldspar quarry near his house. On Saturday, we hiked up to see it. It sits alone and silent in a vast empty wood, rimmed with ancient rock.
Yesterday was simply too glorious to work. Instead, I asked my son if he was interested in driving west to Mt. Apatite, near Auburn, ME. This public park contains a series of abandoned pit mines. Mined until the 1930s, they continue to attract rock hounds today.
Pegmatites are igneous rocks with exceptionally large crystals. They often contain minerals. In Maine that means beryl, tourmaline, zircon, garnet, mica and quartz, not that I’d recognize most of those things. But pegmatites are beautiful in themselves. One can trace the folding and cooling of the earth’s crust in them.
On Mt. Apatite.
There are rock hounds who search old mines for marketable gemstones. We were just interested in looking.
Mica may have little economic value, but it made the woods seem as if it had been sprinkled with fairy dust. It glinted on the path and between the blueberry bushes. There were enough garnets in the rocks that even I could find them. But don’t bother going there to find your fortune in gemstone; these garnets won’t survive being pried loose from their stony prisons.
Mica in the wild.
Minerals are apparently endlessly mutable. There are over 5,300 known mineral species. Their chemical composition is often very complex. For the human mind, with its desire to classify and categorize things, they are irresistible. Plus, they’re often beautiful.
We were poking around along a cliff when an older gentleman loped easily down the rock face toward us. He introduced himself as Dan. He was clearly knowledgeable about minerals and the history of the place. He told my son how to tap the Cleavelanditeto split it, and gave him some hints about proper gear, locations, and the history of the mines in the region.
“It’s gotten really busy here ever since Mindat,” he lamented (referring to a massive online database of minerals). It’s all relative, I guess: on this busiest holiday of the summer, there was nobody there but the four of us.

Black Friday!

Dame’s Rocket, 11X14, unframed, is a great reminder of Spring.
Today is my Black Friday un-sale.  This runs from 2-9, at 410 Oakdale Drive, Rochester, NY 14618. It includes plein air and studio work, framed and unframed, along with prints and notecards—everything 25-50% off.
That is—of course—so much better than being at Wal-Mart at 0:dark:30 this morning to buy some electronic toy you won’t even want by the time Christmas rolls around.
Spring Foliage, 11X14, unframed, features Rochester’s lilacs.
Among my less-than-brilliant ides was having this event the day after having 20 people here for dinner the night before. But an angel in the form of my daughter Mary tidied and mopped the house in the wee hours of the morning, so it doesn’t look much worse than it usually does.
Plus, my tecchie kids are all home today, so they can figure out how to set up this Square credit card reader and make it work.

Durand Lake, 16X20. All these unframed works are 50% off.
Several people have asked me whether there are images online of these paintings. I’ve been kind of busy making pies, so I just got it started this morning. Here’s the album; I’ll be adding details as I can. No, it’s not set up for online commerce; you can call me or send me a text or email and we will finish the sale.
Happy shopping!

I will be teaching in Acadia National Park next August. Read all about it here, or download a brochure here.

Three paintings gone to good homes

Adirondack Path, 14X18, by Carol L. Douglas
This weekend as I sorted and labeled paintings for what is likely to be my first, last and only Black Friday Sale, I kept an eye open for a painting suitable for a friend and colleague from North Carolina. I’ve known her for more than 25 years. Although we haven’t lived in the same city for a few decades, through the miracle of social media I’ve watched her take up painting and develop into a skilled artist in her own right.
Hudson sunset, 12X16, by Carol L. Douglas
One painting kept speaking to me as being appropriate for her: a sunset over the Hudson. This very rarely happens to me; I usually stay out of the process of selection anyway. I sent her a photo, she likes it. I know she’ll love the finished work, and it will be wending its way south this afternoon.
My brother and his three kids just arrived for Thanksgiving. This complicates my sorting-and-labeling project, since it has to be confined to my studio.
Evening squall at 12 Corners, oil on canvas, by Carol L. Douglas
Still, there was (barely) enough room for another couple to sort through the unframed works on my table and find two that they liked. The first—a picture of a snowsquall in downtown Brighton—was just on my blog last week. It is a reminder of all the times I’ve spent waiting for my kids in the loop at 12 Corners Middle School. The other was a reverie painted in the Adirondacks.
Today and tomorrow, I’ll concentrate on getting images of the work in this sale up in an online folder. Yes, I’m happy to ship them, but if you’re able to stop by on Friday afternoon, that would be even better. As I may have mentioned, there will be wine.

The holiday un-sale is from 2-9 on Friday, November 29, 2014, at 410 Oakdale Drive, Rochester, NY 14618. It includes plein air and studio work, framed and unframed, along with prints and notecards—everything 25-50% off.

I will be teaching in Acadia National Park next August. Read all about it here, or download a brochure here

Holiday gift guide #2 (what you need is a painting)

About ten years ago, I realized I had purchased enough toys, appliances, and tchotchkes for a lifetime, and I gave up Christmas shopping. It’s not like anyone ever got sentimental over the PS3 game I bought, after all.
So when I decided to have a Black Friday sale of my paintings, I figured it’d better be an un-sale.
Evening squall at 12 Corners, oil on canvas, by Carol L. Douglas
It’ll be in my house. You can come over and buy nothing, if you want. Hang out on Clifford, talk to the family, drink wine. Or buy a painting. Or ten. It’s all good.
This holiday un-sale is from 2-9 on Friday, November 29, 2014, at 410 Oakdale Drive, Rochester, NY 14618. It includes plein air and studio work, framed and unframed, along with prints and notecards—everything 25-50% off.
This is a great opportu­nity to acquire an original work of art for a fraction of its gallery price. And did I mention there would be wine?

Can’t wait to see you on Black Friday!
I will be teaching in Acadia National Park next August. Message me if you want information about the coming year’s classes or this workshop.

Junior League of Rochester Holiday Market, Oct. 18-19, 2008

This weekend, I will participate in the new Junior League of Rochester Holiday Market at the Dome Fair & Expo Center, 2695 E. Henrietta Rd, Rochester. The show features fine arts and crafts, gourmet foods, and services.

Hours are Saturday from 10 to 6 and Sunday from 10 to 5. Tickets are $5, 12 and under free. They will be available at the door or with advance registration from the Junior League office at 585-385- 8590.

I will have original artwork and prints and notecards for sale. Some of my prints are available online from the publisher, here.

New York landscapes to please any art lover
Ten high quality note cards with envelopes, packed in a clear acrylic box. $9.95 (to order cards by mail, contact me here).

Coast Guard Station

Toys in the Snow
Catskill Farm

Campbell’s Field