7 Random things about me

I've been intrigued with others' listings of these random things, so I will make my listing here:

1....This is a portrait of me holding my precious cat Nyro. I did this painting, approx 36x28, while still in college painting looking at myself...no photo. I'd hold Nyro in my left arm and look into a mirror to reflect our images. He would snuggle in and hold for quite some time. This painting I gave to my mother, but just recently it has come back into my hands.

2....I've lived most of my life as an artist, being a weaver of rugs, clothing, and scarves to support my 2 children.

3....I love open doors so I can float from inside to outside where I love to wander in my natural surroundings, and I let the yard celebrate it naturalness. Yes, I do hear a fly buzzing about.

4....My Mama is the last of our line before me and she is now settled in a nursing home as her alzheimer's made us fearful for her safety. My sister and I allowed her to be placed in her hometown in Ohio. My brother is near and as he says "You both left, now you can travel to see her." I understand, but it is not a happy situation and I do have some guilt.

5....I'm not alone these days which is a good thing. I met a wonderful man on line and he has moved to Montpelier to be with me. We are comfortable companions on so many levels. It still amazes me.

6....It feels good to be loved for who I am. Both my sons too, 30 and 32, live their own lives apart from mine, but have a strong love and respect for me.

7.....I grew up on a farm in Ohio working the fields with migrant workers, I had no predecessors in the art world. I only had the love for art and to be making something which soothed my soul. Somehow I have managed to have a life full of art and art making and to have recognition as an artist, at least in a small pool. I am happy to have achieved art, love, family, and the ability to share this.

Putting on an art show calls for all sorts of demands. Besides the poster I was asked by VAZ to write a bit of an article which I have included some of below...

Peace by Piece, an exhibit at the former Camp Meade, now Red Hen Bakery complex, will open with a reception on Sunday, September 6 from 3 til 6 complete with tours of the open studio cabins, Bruce Sargent's hand built yurt constructed on the property, and readings from the writers collected there. The artists have been working in these studios for the summer without electricity and water. They have been granted the opportunity to showcase their work in the building which used to house the Museum of Camp Meade. it is exciting to have a revival of arts and energy in Middlesex.

The exhibit itself is growing piece by piece, ahem, Peace by piece, as the different artists are bringing their work for display and finding peaceful space for it in this empty sprawling commercial building...many rooms have no widows and only some light canisters. Alex Angio has unpacked and spread out his abstract paintings and prints; some he hasn't seen for years since his move from Argentina. Margaret Blanchard us bringing in her stained glass formed into 3 dimensional sculpture, finding the windows in the entry room to make it glow. We have determined to celebrate the huge wall painting of General Mac Arthur landing in the Philipines, as he and his crowd of followers all proceed into the 'portrait gallery". S.B. Sowbel will enhance the room with her portraits and Maggie Neale will be showing 3 portraits--2 from her college years and one of her first born. Cheryl Daye Dick has been painting landscapes. Sarah Schummer has claimed the map room and Danny Hendershot has yet to claim his show space, as his paintings are all up in a show at LACE in Barre. Trisha Denton has a creative 3D construction called "Homing Device" which is rumored to have a whole performance piece to go with it. And Tom Mulholland is just back from foreign travels...what will he bring to the mix? Peace by Piece, we are growing and changing our world.

Mistaken Identity

Under?
Originally uploaded by colormuse

This painting of oil on an antique bedspread was carelessly placed leaning on this chair. I had originally called it "Under" until I saw it differently...in this position...A new light dawned and perhaps a new name need be sought. Does it only become a chair because of the surrounding shapes? What makes a painting be the most true to itself?

Bleeding Heart and berries

Another gorgeous day!  With the need both to write some here and to move along into the day, I have uploaded the image which appeared to me, not the one intended.  This bleeding heart plant was gifted to me when I resigned from the board of SPA and I planted it on my Wishie Cat's grave in the back yard.  Now the blackberries are growing in profusion near this area and I am enjoying them so...what an excellent addition to apple sauce to redden it and give it that special taste!  My thinking when I was picking them was the wonder of why I had them come to me.  As a child growing in Ohio, we picked raspberries each summer and peach trees grew on 3 sides of the house in large orchards.  I picked strawberries for 10 cents a quart beside the Mexican laborers on our farm for many years.  I could pick 100 quarts from 7 am til 1pm, but I never picked up the Spanish.  So coming to Vermont I have always wanted berries and fruit in my yard.  This home had strawberries and apples when I bought it almost 15 years ago.  The upper garden is now too wet for berries, but I have a few strawberries (Ukrainian plants) in the lower garden which were a great draw to slugs this wet summer.  I planted a cherry tree which died and now lilies grow there.  I planted blueberries--4 bushes and 2 are taking their time to adjust.  I planted red raspberries and beat back the weeds to have a small crop, but the blackberries have come on their own and they are happy plants, spreading and producing, adjusting just fine to their weed friends and taking over a back hill which wasn't producing anything of merit.  I am so pleased when something comes to me for nothing and makes something wonderful of itself.   I celebrate this arrival of luck!

Painting Inspiration

Inspiration is around us all, but how to select which inspirational path will be the most rewarding is a question.  I have been hoping I would see a form in the natural world which would pull my attention and find its way into a painting.  As I stepped into the river the other day, I saw the building on tall legs above the waterfall at the dam and I stood in the river and drew the sketch of it, then I went for my camera and took this photo among others.  My sketch was more elemental...but where is that sketch?  For me sketches disappear if not in a sketchbook.  Images are so often bound in the computer.  Oh, I need to stop writing and print up this image.  What is it about a building on tall legs over fast falling water?  Reminds me that much of my work focuses on the shift of the earth below our feet...maybe this is of similar spirit.

Working with an undercurrent of texture

Sometimes it is the texture of the under cloth which sparks my inspiration.  This black and white check has been waiting for years to be noticed and pulled into use.  I pinned it to the 4x8 table top and dyed several layers of scarves.  Each layer left dye and when the next white layer was pinned and dyed it would pull dried dye from the cloth, a transference of color and texture.  Since I wish to have some control, I'm using a controlled palette, leaving the reds and blues for another day.

Break Free

When I pulled this exercise from the pile, I felt the breaking free...the one sketch was covered by a creamy latex and then scratched through with abandon....breaking free, and I realized in looking at it that one of my goals this summer was to break free of some of the barriers placed upon my art by teachers in the past, by what ought to be. I want to find new territories within myself, new discoveries.

Because my friend Lisa is departing in a few days to return to Paris, I have scheduled an almost impromptu gathering with food, art, music, and fine free thinking humans. The yurt is ready to be celebrated and quite a few paintings are on display in the front building, the garden is producing and the river is low enough to swim without the fear of being rapidly swept downstream. Time to party! Wish you all could be here. Maybe next time...

Love this quote by Hans Hoffman "A work of art is a world in itself reflecting senses and emotions of the artist's world.

Floating Ovals

Another hot day...amazing. Makes it hard to iron silk scarves or bake that bread. I sat on the computer making ads this morning and by the time I made it to back deck, it was quite stifling. Still I painted and it released me from the jangle of resizing images. This was painted during the last batch...22x72 paj, which is the lightest of silks, caressing against the slightest chill, shown here doubled over a rod. Each scarf is handled as a painting, dyed full out working for flow, continuity, composition, and color excitement. Feels good to spread my wings as i spread the dye.

Faiza Khan's Exhibit

Exhibit
Originally uploaded by Faiza A Khan

I'm proud and pleased to know Faiza Khan through flickr. She paints with such skill, emotion, fluidity, and freedom in Pakistan today.

Heat, dye spread and tangles

So warm today, that I must escape into the cool of the house while the silks dry, which doesn't take long in this heat. But I'm not complaining...there are so few truly hot days here in these north lands and I do love working in the sun and breeze of summer days that I am working rather than swimming which is having a pull on me also. My last silk is drying, the sun will be leaving my north faced hill and I will consider again the chance to swim, but I need to get the dried silk off the table top before I venture out. My hues are pale and neutral in this last batch reflecting colors of natural hemps and new sheared wool, the colors from goldenrod and other natural plants when the dye from them is made. My dyes are french heat activated dyes and resistant to fade when processed through steaming. tested by time, but painting with them is my own freedom. When painting over plastic, there is much uncontrolled branching. Now my undercloth is textured and that is showing on the silk work. I like the exchange I can make with my materials and with chance.
I haven't been oil painting much...not enough, but I have also been reminded by other artists that it is summer and not the best time for resolution with paintings. This painting however came clear and I had to laugh when I was given the the name "Put Your Tangles in One Basket" Who gave me that name? yes, it was whispered in my ear while I was finishing the painting and I haven't yet discovered the namer...perhaps my grandmother was hovering...she might have been. Oh, my! is the heat getting to me in here also? I think I just have time for a dip in the river before I take my addition to the refreshments for a 1930's workman's lunch. I made up some boiled new potatoes, carrot sticks, and tea from the flowers in my garden...might have to be a special workman to appreciate my lunch, but I am fond of special working people.

Amy Tan on creativity | Video on TED.com

A funny version on creativity... how things happen...why things happen...effects the making of paintings as well as writing. Click the following to access the sent link: Amy Tan on creativity | Video on TED.com*

Bread and Puppet alive and well

Dirt Cheap Money Circus with Bread and Puppet is alive and well and glad to be entertaining every Sunday. I've been going for the past 30 years, not every year, but many. When I took my young children it was small and quite intimate and I watched on my children's level complete with a picnic lunch. A few year's ago Bread and Puppet had grown so large that there were camps springing up all over Glover and it was out of control. Somehow there was even a death from a fight breaking out in one of the campgrounds....so many people came for the group experience in the overnight camps with partying. Many of the campers never made it to the show. Well, this had to stop and Peter Schumann called a quits to Bread and Puppet...but it couldn't be stopped and slowly it has grown into a Sunday thing which is growing again. I was surprised by the size of the crowd, but happy too at the wonderful assortment of characters enjoying the circus with me. The sun was under clouds and rain misted, warning us of more to come and it did while we were in the woods with the pageant dinner...such fabulous bread with aoli!....I could hear the rain, but the trees were close and protective and when we made our way to the large field, the rain was less and the performers were committed to finish their story. The crowd held, the performers came from several directions to meet at the finale, an uplifting gathering when the inhabitants of the ship of fools dropped their pretenses and joined the choir singing...uplifting and more bread was presented at the bread shack and we formed a parade of cars leaving the site all talking of what we had seen. the wonderful children, the puppets, the capability of the stilt walkers up hill with wet pine needles, and genius of Peter Schumann that he can still pull it off with a bunch of volunteers. How lucky we are to live in Vermont!

Catch August before it is gone!

Summer is in its fullness. August already. Bee balm gathers the bees, a volunteer poppy was an unexpected delight, and the scarves are turning orange in their ripeness wishing to bring warmth to the wearer. These were done on Zappha's birthday with some of her colors as my inspiration. Amazing in how many places inspiration can be found. I am wishing inspiration to all of you my readers and all the many who aren't. Let inspiration flow!

Magic Carpet Ride

Making a painting is like taking a magic carpet ride into internal spaces and coming up for air. Sometimes a painting ride takes many trips before it comes to a finish. I feel like I am searching with this one adding painting and fabric at different times, making textures, one over another. The dotted fabric intrigued me and wanted to join the painting...the yellow acrylic was painted on when I was wanted to find courage, but it frightened me in its acidity. I find I am sensitive to hues....so here I sit inside waiting for scarves to dry on the back deck and as I am writing, I hear something...what! Rain, out of the blue, and my silk scarves all have gathered raindrops. What a dilemma to try to paint under the skies with the pure light of the sun and finds that my watercolors are diluted by a greater water! They are covered now, the sun shines again and I will uncover and inspect the specks. I think perhaps this blog is about trying to put in words some of what my art and process is about...a dialogue I can return to in the attempt to understand...what?...myself!

Family Grouping

Family Grouping was begun while at Vermont Week at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson. I reworked it a few years ago, but the trees stayed strong in their grouping. This painting was not observed for some time until I took it to studio with the thought of reworking again, turning the canvas and making a new image, but it wanted to be hung first. I listened to the painting, hung it on the outside of the cabin in natural light and it stood firm and alive in its own right. A neighbor came by and called it "impressionable". I am not going to paint over it at this time. Do paintings really have their own spirit outside of myself....I am thinking they do?

Stimulus in Paint

Today I took down an exhibit of 15 paintings from Art Path, Burlington. Always mixed feelings getting paintings back home. I do have the anticipation of the sale of "Stimulus" this coming Sunday morning when I meet up with the woman who has claimed this piece. I celebrated by purchasing some new oil paints to help the inspiration and I hung some of the paintings in the Museum building at Camp Meade. We will be announcing a show there soon.

I am including here a piece of writing I did for the Art Path show way back in April. Seems so long ago and don't know why I didn't post it then....I have been coming to a greater understanding of this blog thing....

STIMULUS IN PAINT
paintings in oil, wax, and collage by Maggie Neale of Color Musings

Color and painting have always held my attention. 40 years ago I was studying painting in Bowling Green University in Ohio. My senior year I had a grand opportunity to paint in the stadium, slated for destruction later that spring. It was a stimulus to paint larger, more often, and with a freedon I had not yet understood. My sister posed for me in that hallway and I captured the distress she was feeling and what the building brought out in her. This painting has been part of my mother's collection until just this past month when her collection came back to me. Seeing this work again renews my painting drive...a stimulus in paint.

My painting situation has been minimized for the past several years with no studio use. My paintings are smaller when painted in a crowded kitchen. But the urge to make larger, more expressive work is again with me and I have just committed to a 6 month painting stimulus plan which is so exciting.

Ah, stimulus comes in many flavors. The painting I did in January 2009 called Stimulus was considered for the "SHOW US THE GREEN" exhibit at Studio Place Arts, as we were all thinking of the Stimulus package to be delivered. For me, stimulus comes from within and can not really be "solved" by covering the problem with money.

My paintings are abstract expressions to some. To me they are explorations of my energy and internal vibrations, my feelings as I journal my way through a creative life. Though I can paint from life, I find I am more moved these days to paint from a life force.

Bread and Puppet

The setting sun is now glowing in the trees...finally. We headed out fairly early today to walk a piece of property way up north...was it too wet for building upon? Rain was promising and the sprinkles were starting. We were adaptable and went toward Lake Memphamagog to check out the big lake which is shared with Canada. It looked like our afternoon at the Bread and Puppet Circus would have to wait for another Sunday, but we were near so we made it to the Museum. How extraordinary the museum is with Peter Schumann's work of so many years, puppets, big and small graced the old cow stalls and they almost came to life as we watched. The performers were practicing just outside the windows, dancers on stilts, and the music began. The Circus would happen in the theater, another performance was whispered because of the crowds, but we were so enchanted and satisfied by the museum that we knew we could wait another week to see the performance outside on the hillsides where it is best. Room to spread the wings, hills to dance up and down in great flowing movements...so much more expansive than within the theater. We bought a bit of "Cheap Art" and drove through the rain thinking of how we could heat up the kitchen with a baked squash. Bruce said "how was I so lucky to die and go to Vermont."