Calendar Art

I've put together a calendar for 2014, twelve landscape paintings of Monroe County, WV, where I live. This year, I am printing a very limited edition--maybe 150--to avoid the pain of seeing unsold (but paid for!) calendars consigned to the brush pile and burned. Pollution of the air and soul.

This is a high quality full-color 11" x 17" monthly wall calendar (sample page below), and sells for $15.00 plus the cost of mailing. Order yours by e-mailing judithbair@gmail.com or calling 304-772-4568--and don't forget the stocking stuffers. An invoice will be sent with your mailed calendars. Payment by check or money order.


The paintings themselves are for sale as well. Check out my web site, www.judithbair.com for sizes and prices. Again, contact through e-mail or phone (304-772-4568).

Wishes for a warm and loving holiday season, and a bright new year.












4

After a While...

As I've expressed to many, it's been a long dry spell, but stubbornness prevails and my pledge to get to "real painting" (as opposed to smarmy landscapes) has produced A Painting. "While the Lines Were Being Drawn" follows a thread that will be featured in my upcoming Retrospective (Nov-Dec 2013, Carnegie Hall, Lewisburg, WV).What I like about this "creation myth" is the

While the Lines Were Being Drawn   Oilbar on Canvas 44 x 34

luminescence of the orb--life-giving; the foggy, misty rising of
the "void"; the R&F pigments "Burnt Scarlet" and "Sanguine
Earth;" and the upward striving even as (or before) form takes
flesh.

Which led me to a mental riff on flesh.Why would humans evolve
hairless? How is that preferable (i.e., more evolved) than natural,
protective coverings like scales or fur or armor-dillo? Why evolve a naked being who then has to spend time and thought to body covering rather than hunter-gathering? Think of the millions of person hours spent stitching, dying, trying-on, working to make the bucks that will buy a $300 purse (?!!) covering what?
If anyone has a thought about why, if this was good, nakedness is to be abhorred (at least in Monroe County, WV, where even the vaguest suggestion of human nudity in art, for goodness sake, is scandalizing, please comment.

Perhaps the nakedness is some One's idea of proper balance between brain power and vulnerable flesh. Perhaps the nakedness was an important part of humans diversifying into fashion, fossil fuels, McMansions and road rockets. Why?, How?, What? Perhaps the reason the NUDE has been considered the highest form of visual art is because it is completely unexplainable.

From the Womb Oilbar on Canvas 55 x 40

To the Surface Oilbar on Canvas 24 x 14

At any rate, I feel good about working on this painting. Compare it to "From the Womb" (right), another creation myth more about good and evil, or human variety at least. Or "To the Surface," a smaller piece with wonderful texture.

So talk to me about this stuff (assuming it will upload).

How Do You Say "Buy Me"?

I'd buy this calendar (in fact, I've bought 500 of them), because I've spent the last year with some pretty sorry examples, and sorely missed being reminded of the wonderful world I inhabit. Now I need to sell about 400 of them to restore my financial equilibrium. I produce the calendar myself, in Adobe InDesign, and send it to a class A printer, PS Print, in Oakland, CA. They do a great job.and what you see is pretty much what I did, give or take an inch or two in formatting.

This is a professional/commercial grade calendar on 100# gloss text, and I sell it to you for $10.00 ( plus $3.00 S & H per). I also sell it here in Monroe County at the Autumn Harvest Festival, the local farm markets, the libraries, the restaurants, the food emporium, and wherever opportunity raises its pretty head. It is my sole commercial push, and I have many caveats and blushes around the concept, but, hey.

Now let's look at the paintings.

January:: "Long View" This is an "imagined" landscape, referring back to a painting called "Thicket" and calling on memory of mist along the I-64 corridor in West Virginia between Lewisburg and Lexington. I showed this painting at an Easter show at the Greenbrier Resort, where it sold to someone who consulted their decorator before purchase. SOLD

February: "Lambing Season." We raised Suffolk sheep at Redwing back in the 70's. They are handsome, noble-nosed, and invariably lambed in the coldest, darkest, most hidden parts of our scrubby acres. The lambs are lively and antic beyond cute. These sheep are stolen images from neighbor Bill Canterbury's immaculate fields.

March: "Barns." I painted these barns once before, in 2010, and wasn't completely satisfied with the result. This painting comes closer, though I could have emphasized the foreground more. They achieve a magical balance on the landscape, and exemplify my love of man's hand upon the land. SOLD

April: "Irises." The librarian said I should paint more flowers. These are in my garden every year, screaming a color blue that defies technique.

May: "Waiting Out the Rain." Who paints wet horses? This pair is so beautiful, patient, knowing. If you've owned horses, you can feel that look.

June: "Sun and Shade." A little shed on a back road on a brilliant day. This painting made itself, and I'm grateful. SOLD







July: "Creekside."  Now,  this is an interesting example of what happens with a commission. Obviously, there are expectations.It took months to discover this moment on Indian Creek (actually in September) when light was golden and the hint of scarlet was in the shadows. There's a refinement here that satisfies and delights me. SOLD

August: "August Storm." Someone said this painting was not up to my standard. Well, it's what I saw one August afternoon trying to beat out a downpour.

September: "Blue Road." Looking from my studio window after looking hard at Marsden Hartley's western  landscapes, I could see the shapes and contours of the scene across the way in a new way. He had muscle, and rhythm, and reasons I can't fathom. SOLD

October: "October Gold." Sometimes nature vibrates. The clear air and late afternoon sun made golden aureoles and blue shadows in a  simple pasture in Union, WV.

November: "November Lace"  So many  times I drive through forested roads with light pouring through foliage. This was a tough assignment--so many little points of light and color. I like this painting for reminding me that what I paint is only a compromise between what I see and what there is.

December: "The Maple in Snow." Yes, this is a photograph, a paean to a magnificent tree, at least 100 years old, that succumbed to our once-in-a-lifetime (?) derecho of June 29th, 2012. It is now only a stump and firewood, and I will feel the pain every time I put a log in the woodstove this winter.




So, if you'd like to live with these images for a year, call me at 304-772-4568, or e-mail me at judithbair@gmail.com. Buy one for you and several for stocking stuffers. I'll mail them with an invoice, and you can send a check. Or you can go to Etsy.com (PaintingsbyJBair) and pay through Pay Pal.

To Market, To Market

While I'd rather say something profound or witty after all this time, the truth is I have 400 calendars to sell. These 2013 Monroe County Calendars have become a kind of bread-and-butter project, more because I can sell the paintings than because I sell the calendars. BUT, here we are on Blogspot, which will perhaps encourage more orders?

"The Blue Road"  26" x 26"  SOLD

There are twelve images, local scenes of Monroe County, WV, which can be seen on my Web site, www.judithbair.com under "Landscapes." Here's the cover and back cover, and my favorite from the bunch, The Blue Road, which is a view from my studio window, painted after immersing myself in a beautiful book of Marsden Hartley's western landscapes. December's image is a photograph of the beautiful silver maple in front of my house before it came crashing down this summer during the freakish derecho that decimated so many of West Virginia's noble trees.

There are still six of these paintings for sale, either through my Web site or through Etsy (PaintingsbyJBair). If you have suggestions for marketing, don't hesitate to share. If you have comments about the paintings, I  hope they're kind.

Hopefully, I'm back in blog world. There are 5 blank canvases tacked to my studio walls. Maybe they will yield some insights.

I'm late, I'm late...

Promises, promises. But Saturday was all about family and fun for a change. I dragged my sister and her husband to both of my current shows--the "big" show in Union, with lotsa paintings by 18 artists, and the "fancy" show at The Greenbrier resort--one or two paintings from the same group, our "Monroe Fine Artists." The opening at the big show was a huge success. Great food, great crowds, good work. But why did it remind me so much of a wake (I've only been to one)? People who know each other kinda congratulating each other for showing up, doing their networking thing, loving the opportunity to drink some wine, eat some tasty morsels, exchange news and gossip. The art (like the dead guy) is nice and all, but how much can you say about it?

The event at The Greenbrier had a little more authenticity, maybe because the people who came through did it only for the art. They were strangers both to the artists and each other. The art was the focus, and it was appreciated. That show had maybe 40 paintings, easier to process than the 120 works in Union. (We are lucky to have a terrific curator in Joan Menard, who selected and hung both shows. Ay, the work!)

I want to say that the talent in this group of painters, sculptors, etc. is impressive. Yes, the subject matter is often colloquial, but the range of styles and quality of technique is amazing for a rural county of this size. It is a treat to see the burgeoning of an arts community--both artists and appreciators--where there was only a void.

What's in a frame?

One of the most onerous, time-consuming, frustrating and unsatisfying aspects of the do-it-yourself artist's responsibilities is framing the work. Especially if you're 73. I know I've lost some strength, skill, desire for perfection, when it comes to making those "simple" gallery frames. And yet.

I'm in a time warp/financial bind when it comes to framing. In the 60's, you threw some lath around the edges of your canvas and you were done. On some of my larger pieces, I nail 1 x 2, either painted or stained, to the stretcher bars. My favorite was the 1 3/8 x 3/8 stop with one rounded edge that you could "gild," which I only found at National Lumber in Baltimore. Cheap, elegant, okay. Nowadays, you can't even buy gold paint in a can--it has to be sprayed (which I'm even worse at than measuring!). Mitered corners are a must, even when your chop saw is incapable of an even cut.

So for the last two days, I've sat on the steps of my front porch, between showers, hail storms, thunder and lightning, with my chop saw and some 1 x 2 that I (1) stained dark; (2) sprayed with something called "Satin Nickel," and did my best to cut and nail these poor excuses to my precious paintings. Shaving sixteenths of an inch, cursing, pulling bent nails (and leaving some others!), poking holes in my skin and scaring the cats with my reactions, I managed to "frame" eight paintings.

In a way, this exercise is a kind of anti-hubris charm. In another way, I DO NOT LIKE frames that are "bigger and better" than the work they surround. I am not a Renaissance painter, I'm certainly not Thomas Kincaid, I cannot afford even $200 or $300 for a frame around a painting that might sell for $500--or never sell. I do my best to finish the work to a displayable form, but if the frame is what interests or repels you, Uhhhh.

This post says more about me than about my art. But what a couple of days....Do you think my paintings would look better if someone else cursed over them in the framing stage?

A painting in progress. My poinsettia finally yielded a few perfectly curled leaves--and they were green! I collected them and the rest of what had fallen off my neglected plant and fell in love with the colors.That red is Tompte Red, with a little alizarin crimson. The amazingly delicate undersides of petals, pinkish, greenish, pale--a flesh for poetry. The dark, dry purples of the deadest leaves are little exclamations, and the whole writhes and thrusts as never in real life. Everything is roughly blocked in. The wonderful thing is that I can see this painting finished--all those sexy little details that will lend emphasis and clarity. The danger is that maybe now I won't have to finish it?

One of the forgiving benefits of working on the wall is that scale can be adjusted. This canvas started out about 44 x 34, but I had to shave some inches from the top in order for the proportions to please. Might lose an inch or two on the sides as well. This is what I think about when I'm working, and, of course, whether stretcher bars come in the size I need. Do you know that 26" stretcher bars are scarcer than hens" teeth? That is an art-i-fact.