Tag: letters from home

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I should have named this art show ‘Sentimental Journey’

Waves of Mercy and Grace, 30X40, oil on linen, in a simple black wood frame, shipping and handling included in continental US, $6,231.00

My cousin Antony lives in Australia. The last time we saw each other was in 2008, when his boys were mere striplings. That’s a long flight, so you don’t just go for a week. I got to spend a lot of time with Oscar and Gus and their best bud Tim, including hours at the beach. They scampered up rocks like mountain goats and flopped into the water like seals. I painted a study of them, and then this larger painting from that study.  At the time, I was interested in the subject for aesthetic and symbolic purposes. Today, it reminds me of all the sweet days I’ve spent at the beach with kids. It’s the centerpiece of Letters from Home, which opens tomorrow at 4 PM.

Intimate storytelling

The new puppy, oil on archival canvasboard, 8X10, framed, $652 includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

I picked out paintings for this show based on their nostalgic appeal, as if they were letters from our universal ‘home’. When I put them all together, I realized there was some intimate storytelling involved. Take, for example, this little painting of a family walking their puppy on the beach. If you’ve ever had a puppy, you know you don’t walk it so much as coax it along. It’s a universal experience that every dog-lover knows, and the details don’t need to be spelled out.

When my twins turned sixteen, their greatest ambition was to work at Seabreeze Amusement Park. Of course, only Laura got a job there; Julia got the consolation prize of working at a nearby big box store. What Laura quickly learned was that running the kiddie rides is hot, thirsty, dull work. As soon as she could, she too got a job at the same big box store.

Tilt-A-Whirl, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

But none of us ever stopped loving the Tilt-a-Whirl. I painted it live, en plein air, just as I painted the carousel at Saranac Lake. It’s just a trick.

Spring Allee, oil on archival canvasboard, 14X18, $1594.00 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Spring allee runs off the Erie Canal just east of Gasport, NY. It’s just a footpath running through scrub, but my friend Bill and I used it as a long cut when trail-riding some 50 years ago. Our horses are long gone, but I bet I can still pick out the trailhead.

Sometimes the story is less direct

There’s a painting of a black walnut leaning against a stone wall in this show. It’s certainly representative of New England. For me, it’s also a memory of using Jonathan McPhillips as a windbreak in gale-force winds.

The Late Bus, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, $435.00 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Sometimes intimate storytelling isn’t based on a real place as much as an idea. The Late Bus is about going home after school from swim practice. My kids went to a suburban school and were walkers, so when my son had swim practice, I waited for him along a busy street. But I swam for a rural high school, and the chlorine, the frozen hair, and general feeling was just the same. This was just my way of capturing that feeling.

Opening Saturday, May 31, 4-7 PM
Carol L. Douglas Studio/Richards Hill Gallery,
394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME, 04856
May 30-June 26, 2025
Tuesday-Sunday, Noon-5 PM

An important PS

Julie Hunt is my student from Alberta, Canada. She is in an online show called Crops Diversity Canada. The work is stunning, but only up until the end of this month, so take a few moments to browse it now!

If you’re ready to start painting, I’ve just released Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters. You’ll learn seven essential protocols that every successful oil painter needs to follow. Each course focuses on one protocol, and you can take them in any order that suits you.

Reserve your spot ASAP for a workshop in 2025:

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Getting ready for my art gallery opening

Opening Saturday, May 31, 4-7 PM
Carol L. Douglas Studio/Richards Hill Gallery,
394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME, 04856
May 30-June 26, 2025
Tuesday-Sunday, Noon-5 PM

Early Spring on Beech Hill, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas, 12X16, $1449 framed includes shipping in continental US.

One of the sharpest women I’ve ever known is Lois Giess, former President of the Rochester (NY) City Council. She once told me, “All action is change, even inaction.” We were talking about an expansion project that ultimately failed. Indeed, that moment proved to be the organization’s high-water mark.

I think that’s true of both our everyday and artistic lives, which is why I’ve been harping about calling and meaning so much the past few weeks. I haven’t made any kind of fuss about it in my blog, but I’ve been ill since I got home from Malta on April 20—first with COVID and then with an asthma backlash. It’s taken until last week to get my medications straightened out so that I feel well enough to work a long day. I was overjoyed to realize I was right back into my usual optimism and energy as soon as they were fixed, and I’m deep in preparation for my art gallery opening.

Drying Sails, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, $869 framed.

What’s changing?

I just built the gallery last year, so there’s little that needs repair (although I did find a spot of rust on the door, darn it). However, we’ve changed the supports for the awnings, gotten new display cabinets and beefed up our security. The old security system was mainly my dog, who barks anytime a car pulls into the driveway. However, sometimes they’re just turning around, and he’s not great at telling me that. Now I can see them on my phone.

My husband worried that the old awning supports were so low someone might back over them. I thought they were hideously ugly. I’m completely full of myself about our solution, which involves a five-gallon bucket of concrete set inside a very pretty ceramic planter, with viney things set to climb up the poles.  

I started feeling better at the same time as the rainy season broke. That was great because you can’t really do that kind of work in cold rain. While I’ve had all the parts (and artwork) ready, I am just getting things installed this week. That’s rather pushing the limit for my art gallery opening this Saturday.

Main Street, Owl’s Head, oil on archival canvasboard, $1623 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

The things artists do instead of painting

My friend Björn Runquist has been counting the days of rain in May; at last report we were up to 47. As you can imagine, the overgrowth of weeds has been tremendous (as have the mosquitoes). That meant I had to divert some energies into weeding the foundation plantings. I have just enough hausfrau in me to believe that visitors would be so appalled by the weeds, they’d turn on their heels and walk out.

I was a dedicated gardener until plein air got in the way. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy the meditative quality of pulling weeds.

Best Buds, 11X14, oil on canvasboard, $1087 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

And a reminder about this art gallery opening

Letters from Home opens on Saturday, May 31 from 4-7 PM, at 394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME. As my Uncle Frank says, be there or be square.

If you’re ready to start painting, I’ve just released Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters. You’ll learn seven essential protocols that every successful oil painter needs to follow. Each course focuses on one protocol, and you can take them in any order that suits you.

Reserve your spot ASAP for a workshop in 2025:

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Letters from home

Opening Saturday, May 31, 4-7 PM
Carol L. Douglas Studio/Richards Hill Gallery,
394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME, 04856
May 30-June 26, 2025
Tuesday-Sunday, Noon-5 PM

Lobster pound, 14X18, oil on canvas, $1594 framed includes shipping and handling within the continental US. This is true nostalgia, since this lobster pound is no longer with us.

Certain places evoke collective nostalgia because they serve as shared universal touchstones. These are places where personal and collective memories intersect. Maine is one of them, which is why I’m calling my first show this season Letters from Home.

Letters from Home opens on Saturday, May 31 from 4-7 PM, at 394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME. If you don’t stop by for a glass of wine and hors d’oeuvres, I’ll be terribly disappointed. For one thing, I hate leftovers.

Country Path, 14X18, oil on archival canvasboard, $1,275 includes shipping and handling in continental US. This isn’t in Maine, but it’s in the show because country roads and paths are places which inspire that feeling of nostalgia in us.

Collective nostalgia and the meaning of place

Maine is in New England, but it’s too north-woods to be in the top drawer of the social tea chest. (That’s true of much of northern New England, although the Yankee village-square and sugar maple aesthetic is universal.)

Still, Maine is a cultural touchstone of many virtues which we associate with New England. These include community, rugged individualism, self-sufficiency, respect for nature and hard work. I know we now like to adopt a cynical attitude about those things, but I submit that’s a pose. Even when we can’t succeed at them, we still, deep down, admire those traits. Our feelings about them are embedded in our collective nostalgia for Maine.

To most of America, Maine exists out of time. We’re all nostalgic for an America that once was, and the remnant of that exists here in Maine more than many other places. While most of my readers have never even visited my little town (but you should), we all have memories of a time when America had smaller communities, mom-and-pop motels, restaurants that weren’t chains and quieter roads. These memories may not even be from our own generation, but universal images that go back generations.

Larky Morning at Rockport Harbor, 11X14, on linen, $869 unframed includes shipping in continental US.

Places also carry an imprint of history. None of us are old enough to have hauled up cod onto the icy decks of schooners that plied the Grand Banks. However, we understand their importance, and are happy to see them, restored and resting in our harbors.

Not all these paintings are from Maine, because I don’t always paint here. But they’re all of things I think of as universal archetypes from the past. That’s our collective home.

Artists like me are, of course, terrible offenders at promoting collective nostalgia. We don’t do that cynically, or manipulatively. Like everyone else, we feel the pain of loss and change, so we paint what’s disappearing.

Please join me on May 31, from 4-7 PM for the opening of Letters from Home, at my gallery at 394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME.

Evening in the Garden, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

If you’re ready to start painting, I’ve just released Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters. You’ll learn seven essential protocols that every successful oil painter needs to follow. Each course focuses on one protocol, and you can take them in any order that suits you.

Reserve your spot ASAP for a workshop in 2025: