I am a landscape painter living and painting on the Georgia coast. Painting and writing is a way to reach out and share my observations, my experiences and my inspirations with you. It is how I tell my story and the story of the wild, beautiful landscape where I live.
Humid and warm. The tide is coming in and filling our little marsh. I could sit out and do nothing but just watch.
Little crabs scurrying around for higher ground as the water trickles in. Frantically digging their dens and throwing small, perfectly round mud balls out onto the bank.
Light hitting the tops of the old grasses, the fresh young green grass receiving a good dunking. A baptism of sorts. A rite of passage. As in, this is now your life, this is what you live for: the salt water submersion and then the drying out, and then the lingering, the wait for the next tide to come.
Sometimes it’s the little things, the unexpected view of the commonplace that calls to me.
Down low among the grass, eye level with the marsh hens and just a breath above the water, the world becomes smaller.
Intimate. Familiar. Ceremonious. All encompassing.
I hear nothing but the sound of the water as it swirls and pulls at the mud and the grass, cajoling it and calling it back out to sea… a mesmerizing siren’s song sung by the tide.
It’s a beautiful Friday afternoon. I am watching the sun throw shadows across the marsh. Everything is bathed in its warm light including the few clouds moving to the east. It makes me so sleepy and relaxed. Our two dogs hold down opposite ends of the couch, curled up sleeping. The squirrels are running and diving through the limbs in front of me. Gray kitty and orange kitty are frolicking on the neighbors lawn. Each one giving chase to the other and orange kitty demonstrating his flips and dives. It looks like spring. It feels like spring.
Life here influences art and art influences life. So much more so than ever before. Just like the cycle of tides, so are the days and weeks and months of painting this landscape. Every moment comes into play. Each fresh moment joins all of the moments of the past to create a library of thoughts and feelings and images from which to create.
The days are getting longer and the suns angle in the sky is changing. My place on the porch is lit by the sun. And for several blinding minutes its light finds a hole in the leaves and shines directly on me. And then it is gone. Sinking behind the trees, leaving me in shadow. The marsh is also more shadow than light now. Only a few bits of light remain. Dusk still happens quickly. But that golden light is so amazing. Something so precious rarely lasts long.
“For the artist, there is no insignificant thing.” ― Marty Rubin
There is a small wooded area on the island where we live. One of the last wooded spots that, through some miracle has escaped development. It’s not a beautiful spot, by most people’s standards. No creek or marsh, no great ocean view. Nothing of significance.
But that insignificance is what makes it beautiful.
It is made up of oaks, palms and pines interwoven with spindly trees of unknown pedigree, each looking for a small patch of light. It is overgrown with vines and shrubs and mistletoe and moss. It is wild and untamed and chaotic in the way that nature can only compose. It is rare and unique.
And when the late afternoon sunlight shines through and over and around all of this chaos… it is absolutely enchanting.
For a change, this morning my mind is blank. Empty.
I think I am in that in between moment. Life Limbo… Between a week of vacation last week and a week ahead of normal everyday life. Between living in the moment and the reality of everyday life, full of to-do lists and appointments to keep. Between a week of only plein air and a week ahead of studio painting. Between painting for the sake of just observation and emotion and painting with purpose to push observation and emotion to the next level.
After a week of clearing my mind of anything that resembled the daily status quo, I spent each day with no plan at all except to paint what was in front of me, find a good spot for lunch and take the dogs to the beach as the day turned into evening. Now I am back in the land of having more to do than there is time to do it. You know the place.
Not to mention, it is suddenly cold outside! As if that doesn’t just put my mind in neutral. Saturday it was 80 degrees but somehow overnight, winter blew in. That sends me straight into hibernation mode. That doesn’t lead to much production.
Getting back into the groove is always an adjustment. Even if you love you what you do, coming back from time away is still a battle sometimes.
The trade off is the fresh energy and outlook it can provide. Working too long in any one direction can feel stifling and drain the creativity right out of me. Time away, spent outside is like refilling that well. The trick is trying to channel that new energy into my studio work and not rebel against it. It is easier to do if my work in the studio is a similar to what I have been painting outside…. a whole lot trickier if the plein air and the studio work are different subjects, different emotions and a different focus.
Hence, that blank, unfocused feeling as I drink my coffee and think about the day in front of me. Trying to put a plan into action. The unexpected gift in this moment, is the uncluttered mind. Heading to my studio this morning without a previously unfinished, problematic painting staring down at me from my easel is definitely a lovely feeling.
