A Still-Life Calendar for 2017

Posted on by Sheila 4 Comments

2017calendaredcover

Here is one of two new calendars for 2017 (the second, quite different, calendar to be posted soon). In this one each month features one of my seasonal still-lifes.

The calendar is 8-1/2” x 11” and printed on sturdy satin stock, substantial enough so the images can be saved as prints.

A single calendar is $23; a set of two is $42. Shipping is 3-day Priority Mail, domestic US.

If you are in my area, you can obtain a calendar from me directly without shipping—just let me know.

Unless you prefer to be surprised, you can look at tomorrow’s post to see the twelve still-lifes featured within.

Single calendar:




Set of 2 calendars:




Those Pesky Immigrants

Posted on by Sheila Leave a comment

Columbus Day is an opportunity to ponder immigration, an especially rich subject during the current election season. The image below, created for this holiday, is part of the all-media Op-Ed exhibit at the Art League Gallery at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virginia. Come to the opening reception October 13th for a look at a range of opinionated work.

(click twice to enlarge)

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To A Butterfly

Posted on by Sheila 1 Comment

Summer officially came to an end at 10:21 Eastern Daylight Time this morning. Welcome Autumn with a poem by William Wordsworth.

firstlight

I’ve watched you now a full half-hour,
Self-poised upon that yellow flower;
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless!—not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again !

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister’s flowers;
Here rest your wing when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We’ll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.

—William Wordsworth

Beach Houses, Big Sky

Posted on by Sheila Leave a comment

Although it’s still summer, the first of September feels like a turning of the year, a return to school and schedules, and a farewell to cicadas and the least possible clothing. In parting I celebrate the day with a watercolor of Duck, NC, where the family just spent an idyllic week, and, attesting to the season’s ambivalence, a poem by A.E. Housman.

BeachHousesBigSky

XXXIX (from Last Poems)

When summer’s end is nighing
And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
And all the feats I vowed
When I was young and proud.

The weathercock at sunset
Would lose the slanted ray,
And I would climb the beacon
That looked to Wales away
And saw the last of day.

From hill and cloud and heaven
The hues of evening died;
Night welled through lane and hollow
And hushed the countryside,
But I had youth and pride.

And I with earth and nightfall
In converse high would stand,
Late, till the west was ashen
And darkness hard at hand,
And the eye lost the land.

The year might age, and cloudy
The lessening day might close,
But air of other summers
Breathed from beyond the snows,
And I had hope of those.

They came and were and are not
And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
That ever can ensue
Must now be worse and few.

So here’s an end of roaming
On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
For summer’s parting sighs,
And then the heart replies.

—A.E. Housman

CakeBerries2

Elizabeth