Summer Window

 You can call me a lazy blogger these days...it's been since winter that I last wrote a post here. Times of Corona, perhaps. Or perhaps it's times of floating out there on a ship at sea, watching for dry land, yet hoping the ship just keeps going to an island named Garden of Eden. No crazy news, just peaceful breeze, gentle days, a pile of good books....art, music, food.

I've been painting, gardening, reading, cooking....which is nothing new around here: just lots more of it. The stay at home months haven't been that bad, other than the knowledge the world will not be the same: art and galleries, like many other things, have taken a beating. So does an artist quit making art? Of course not. We just pick up the brush, the pen, the guitar, the tools of our labor and deal. We go on. As with a garden, art is hope.

I painted "Summer Window" with the thoughts of looking in (or out) the window of thought: to floating lush images, abstracted in the mystery of Nature. You'll see where I set up the old wood easel outside in the courtyard area I created all spring. Why, I even dug out a small fish pond! Plus a frog pond in the front yard area. And planted, pruned, planted, dug, planted, dug. Putting in a garden IS art. As long as I do something creative, I can get by. Everything changes, but that doesn't.

This morning, I packed the car with paintings, and drove down the mountain to Tryon Painters & Sculptors in their beautiful gallery: which has re-opened with safe social-distancing and cleaning. There was Grace and Kam, ready to help me: and behind our face masks, we all were smiling to see one another again. The show will open early August and run til September. It felt good to load paintings, haul, and know art goes on. Yes it does!

Changes Along The Road of Life

It's been a while since my last blog post--let's face it, maybe the months of heaving, schlepping and cleaning took a toll. Well, to be honest, it has! Selling a long-time home is NOT easy, especially if you have to divest yourself of many belongings in order to fit into another smaller spot. It's akin to stuffing a watermelon in a bag meant for a grape, perhaps!

Getting rid of 'stuff' is not a bad thing. Just overwhelming. Symbolic of life, these sortings and siftings. I've let go many things. The house has been relisted, and I'm hopeful someone who loves old houses with a past will find it. Surely not everyone wants new, shiny, perfect? It's worse than a dating site if you ask me. These days I'd rather scroll through the animal rescue sites. Mercy, I miss my River Dog. Driving last month to Florida in the coastal rain, I found my own self raining, thinking about him in the passenger seat on past trips.

There's something comforting about a warm furry snout pointed toward the lone highways ahead. Yes, I need another dog. One of these days. Right now, I continue to work on adjusting to life in new digs--sort of a period of limbo and change this year. Losing River was the toughest thing; and two best friends died. I'd loved them both as long as I'd loved the old house, which has been a friend too. Things change, we face loss. In that, we keep on going, finding our way on different paths.

Finding space to create has been tough, but I rolled-pushed-shoved a balking  cart of oil paints and supplies out to the front porch this week on a sunny day. Let me tell you, it's work...there's a bit more involved than just rolling a cumbersome balky cart. Set up French easel. You do NOT want to see a right-brained artist setting up a French easel with 20000000 parts and screws. Then...rags and paper towels. Hunting more paint from packed boxes. Well, here's one of the paintings from that afternoon (above). I'm trying. I'm trying.

Florida fed my spirit. Just getting away for a while helps.
After walking the beach, searching for shells and a few answers, I got up one dark morning before dawn, skipped morning coffee and headed out to the sea. Waiting on the sand was a damp dollar bill. Then brilliant red, scarlet, and every shade of glorious you could ever imagine sweeping up over the ocean. Maybe there were a few answers in that solitary walk. Thank you, thank you, universe.

 It was hard to leave sunshine in Fernandina Beach, driving back to rain and chill. I returned with resolve to keep painting, to be kinder, to do better on making ends meet. I changed hair color. Looked at more rescue sites. And a dating site. The rescue site seemed a safer bet.

Bonnie's World

(Painting detail: "Journey Home", Bonnie Joy Bardos, 36" x 48" sold ) 

"The great lesson from the true mystics is that the sacred
is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life,
in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's backyard." 

~ Abraham H. Maslow

Bonnie's World: Life In Our Foothills Magazine 

                                            Bonnie & River

photo credit: Mark Levin, photographer for Tryon Daily Bulletin, Life In Our Foothills)

It's getting toward the end of February, and I'm slow at getting this blog updated, so here it is, finally. Of course, there are excuses...don't you hate those? However, I do have some fairly credible ones. As usual, winter is a hard time for the art life and just surviving cold, winter bills, and the whole nine yards. I just had hand surgery (and lived to tell about it!)....after nine months of 24/7 pain. After a De Quervain's disease diagnosis back in June, I went to an orthopedic doctor for a shot and further help. That didn't last long-- finally it just was unbearable...whatever was going on. 

Naturally, a vivid imagination doesn't stop at the canvas or written word. I pictured having to paint and sculpt with different means than hands. Others have done it. Over the months, I could do less and less, although I still painted (I call those the one-handed marvels), typed, and hauled art to shows. Creating sculpture pieces was much harder, so that fell by the wayside over fall and winter. To make a long story short, the hand surgery was last week, and I'm hoping for good recovery: maybe no more hauling heavy rocks for fire rings, no? 

This gray soggy winter afternoon, I picked a few valiant daffodils on the walk with River, brought them home to brighten the days ahead. Sunshine in a vase! It's those little tender things that get us through. 

I hope you'll enjoy reading the February issue of "Life In Our Foothills" feature on "Bonnie's World" written by Steve Wong, photographed by Mark Levin. Just click the link above. 

Things may be slow-handed around the Art House, but I've got lots of art to look at, for sale, and out at shows. "Journey Home" is at the ubiquitous Purple Onion here in Saluda, and the Artist of the Year/Red Carpet exhibit lasts until mid-March at Tryon Arts and Crafts. Whimsical World Gallery in Landrum, SC also has a number of pieces. 

When you buy art from a living artist, you keep that artist living and surviving! Another thing that helps raise those much-needed pennies is to click those pesky ads on this blog. I get a few cents for each click. Sorry about that, I despise ads! But, in this case, it helps my ends meet. Thank you!  

                         "Songs of the Earth: The Pond Frog" goes home with Danielle

Winter Musings & Remembering Fernandina

Winter is upon us in my small town here in the Western North Carolina mountains...at least 18+ of winter knocking on the door, with even bigger piles of winter white blanketing the world outside. The stuff is heavy and dense, weighing roofs down, blocking roads, challenging power company crews out fixing downed lines. Oh yes, winter is upon us. Inside, River Dog and Pikachu Cat find the warmest spots they can: River in front of the living room gas stove.

I perch at my desk chair, wishing for heated seats or at least spring. Speaking of heat and spring, back in November I drove down to Florida over to Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island, not far from the Georgia line. A friend lets me borrow his historical charming-sweet little cottage "Fernandina Cottage". All I have to do is find my way there from here, River tucked beside me in the passenger seat, a load of art supplies and various bags tucked in the rear.




It takes us a good seven hours or so to get to the cottage, since we hit about every rest stop in between. We packed up before rain hit and got away to Florida just in time: driving in to sun and warm temperatures, palm fronds swaying. This trip, I was lucky to know where things already were: Nana Theresa's Bake Shop downtown. Thrift shops. Rhonda's house a couple blocks back from Wade's house. Who the neighbors and dogs are. The quickest way to the beach. Townie's Pizza. How to walk to the Green Turtle. Y'know. Important stuff.




This trip I expanded my exploring to American Beach. Then, neighbor Rhonda took a day off and introduced me to parts unknown: the little chapel in American Beach. Roads with Spanish moss dripping, live oaks. A ferry ride. Fresh shrimp at her favorite dive, painted orange, beside the river. Places she'd been where if you get out, you get toted off by mosquitoes. We just drove by that day, neither one of us wanted to duel with skeeters! She pointed out a quaint church tucked in Florida woodlands, a tabby house ruin, probably built by slaves. Little bits and pieces of the past. Small winding roads where new Florida still doesn't exist. Oh, I was hungry to find Old Florida still left.




We admired buckets of silver fish gleaming on the dock, right off the boat. Driving on, we came into the outskirts of Jacksonville near the Navy base. That's a whole 'nother story...but I'll say we had quite a laugh over our adventures that day. Back in Fernandina Beach, I hung some art around the cottage (with Wade's permission, of course) and rearranged furniture. It was a work of art. Over in the evening, the days short and with the time change, I'd pour a glass of vino, sit with River out on the front porch and toast life. It does a body good to go somewhere, and have a few friends along this path of life.



By the way, if you'd like to spend some time at Fernandina Cottage, just contact Wade Kirkland via Facebook, the owner who lives in Charlotte, NC. I can attest that it's in the heart of all sorts of Good Things. Historic Fernandina Beach. Not far from the sea or dining. The marina's a walk away. Bikes. Galleries. Bakeries. Fresh caught seafood. The oldest bar in Florida. A nice woman named Bonnie who works at the Visitor Center in the old depot building. I liked her. Besides, I'll always remember her name, since it's mine too. Oh, yes, it does a body good to get away.



(P.S.: This month, I'm "Artist of the Month" at Tryon Arts & Crafts School (see link at right) and will be featured at David Cedrone's "Whimsical World Gallery" December 15 from 5-8 p.m. along with David (gallery owner and artist), Alex Trumble, Kelly Sparks, and Amy Goldstein-Rice. Enjoy live music with Jay Maybry Band!)

The Creation of Gaia (how a sculpture is born)

The other night, my sculpture "Gaia: Mother Earth" (detail above) won 1st place in an annual juried exhibit. Of course, I was thrilled--who wouldn't be?! It dawned on me that maybe there are those who would like to know how a sculpture is born, so to speak. This particular piece was years in the making, and I spent the past year (on and off) working on her. It didn't happen overnight, and it didn't happen in a day! Sometimes things do, but in this case, it was a long labor of love along with a lot of experimentation on top of labor and time.

Gaia started as another sculpture: one that I'd sent out to the side garden to live a few years by a garden arch. You might not want to do that to a painting, but you can often do that to a sculpture! Over months and a few years, she weathered the elements and changed. As we all do. Such is life, right? Ivy started creeping up her body, moss grew here, there. Every now and then I'd tuck flowers on her head--which was fired terra cotta clay.



Being out in nature, she took on a different persona. One day, I looked at her again and pulled her armature up from the base. Hauling her to the back deck tables, I laid her flat on a sheet of heavy duty plastic, made my witch's brew of secret treatments while wearing heavy neoprene black gloves and went to work (her face is toward bottom of photo below).



The new piece begun. With a bucket-load mix of matte medium and other elements including long strands of kudzu fiber, I literally bathed her from top to bottom, then wrapped her tight in the plastic, duct-taping the whole thing so it wouldn't drip. For a while, I tucked her inside on the back porch...who knows what the phone guy thought! She resembled an Egyptian mummy at this point.

I'd collected long strands of kudzu fiber from the side street: all summer, I'd pulled those pesky kudzu-monster vines out in the side street for cars to run over, again and again. Every walk with the dog, I'd pull 'em a little more, or kick them back to the edge: so they suffered great abuse! The traffic and abuse broke the long vines apart into fiber. Kudzu is amazingly strong, FYI. For sculpture, I needed it dry, and carefully separated it a bit, folding it up to store in a 5-gallon bucket on the back porch until I was ready to work more. Meanwhile, we have a 4' foot tall mummy hanging around the house. Imagine that! Occasionally, I'd unwrap the plastic and check. With fired clay, wood, metal, and other materials in the wrap, I didn't want it to be too wet, so I'd open it up to dry. Next, I hauled her back to the work tables outside and brought along the kudzu fiber. This was exciting! (don't ask me why, but it was...)

Maybe because experimentation is curiosity. You don't know where you're going to end up. This led into winding kudzu fiber, treated with more matte medium, in naturally-flowing patterns. Already, she had wings--which I added to with organic materials from Gulf waters, a couple of large twisted shells I'd collected, and wire. After all this dried, I left her propped (no more mummy wrap) in the dining room where over months I eyed her to think about what would be the next step. A friend noticed her and mentioned Japanese Kabuto theater masks. Now that really got my little imagination wheels spinning...so, I used Bondo for more structure-building, and a Golden modeling product for filling in cracks: sort of a face lift for the old face. (if only it was that easy for me!)

I used white gesso for her 'mask'. For the fun part, lips got Cadillac Red. A girl can never have too much lipstick, eh? I loved it! Experimentation = EXCITEMENT. So...I let her sit a few more months. I eyed her to think what's next? This takes a while, folks. All the while, I'm working on other things: a bazillion paintings on top of trying to mow and survive daily. However, she's my constant companion, and always standing at the dining room door so I never miss her.



I agonized over if I would enter the yearly Arts Council "Bring Us Your Best" art exhibit. It'd cost me money to renew my membership/enter, and I just didn't have the extra $40. Well, that's nothing new! My hand/wrist ached from carpal tunnel/tendon issues, and I worried that toting the piece around would be impossible. Nobody's ever going to buy her...oh, the excuses kept rolling! Maybe I won't enter this year, I thought. But.....I did. She kept whispering to me to work on her, no more excuses. So, I got busy and pulled the sculpture outside to the front porch studio: it was time to 'bring her home' which means get her finished! I elevated her on a large plastic bucket set on a large section of old canvas so I could move around her in a circle. More kudzu fiber, matte medium, acrylic paint. I have a lovely light-weight hammer I call "Maxwell's silver hammer": it was in use, along with wire cutters, paint brushes, pliers--tools of the trade. More wire. A bird's nest with nutmeg 'eggs'. I'd made the nest a few years ago, and painted the eggs with a bit of blue after securing it on her head, with a fired clay bird I'd made years ago--I retrieved it from the kitchen window. Like stone soup, the recipe for a sculpture of mine can include just about everything! Since I'm a fan of recycling, organic, and re-purposing: this is a way of educating others what can be done with materials we might not consider.



Hauling a copper pipe down to Gibb's Welding out of Landrum, SC, I picked out a nice rust-colored square of steel for the base, with the copper to be joined. That meant a return trip to pick it up...and the old truck and I went forth the next day. Having the functioning base with pipe made it easier to work with her. Treating the base with a etching fluid and later acrylic after a bit of naval jelly to remove extra rust, I finished that part and went back to tweaking, using matte-treated hydrangea blossoms from the yard, a bit of dried orchid flowers for the nest: which is by now attached as her head dress. The kudzu whorls beautifully up, around the head, even as it does lift toward the sun. A iridescent feather circles and whirls around her head, creating the feel of a turning earth.

Again, more matte medium and shades of green, brown (all natural hues) paint here and there, with a bit more white gesso and red for her face. I built a blue planet out of a Japanese lantern for her to hold: this takes a couple days of baking it on low in the oven (drying) and loads of paint with torn tissue paper to give it the look of Earth floating in space. Around this point, as I'm tucking moss and again eyeing the piece: she names herself. Gaia. Of course, she knew. All this time, we'd been working together, I was just listening. All her elements honored life, nature, and spirit.

If someone asked me how long it took me to make this sculpture, I would say a lifetime. She's a cumulation of all I've learned, and all that is. I took what I knew, and used what I didn't know. Maybe 'un-knowing' is a good thing. So on the show intake day, I tucked her in the passenger seat of the old truck, and we rode together over to Flat Rock, best friends. I never know what people think of seeing a pick-up truck with two women up front: one driving, and one with a bird nest on her head, but I hope they smile.





*if you enjoyed this blog, please share. Even feel free to click those annoying ads (sorry about that!)I think it earned me a whole quarter last month. In the art life, a quarter is good. So click, share, and I'd love you to follow it (scroll down on right side and join in!). Thank you for reading this. It's done with love.

Summer Paintings & Thoughts

The ultimate source of happiness is not money and power, but warm-heartedness.

~ Dalai Lama

This painting is "If I Could, I'd Fly Away With You", (painting in progress) 20" x 20" oil on linen...it really came around today: I'd taken it out to the front porch easel this morning: sun shining despite promise of rain, River Dog basking, Pikachu sneaking around as cats do.

My foot hurt (whine) from a shard of glass I hadn't been able to get out--serves me right for bare footin' it in the kitchen yesterday. The wrist hurt (whine) from carpal tunnel/tendonitis. I was worrying myself over mortgage and thoughts of will-I-make-it-another-day-month-year, and this, that, no half-&-half for coffee (whine), friends and family struggling with the big C, and then....started painting. And painting. Oh, the changes this one underwent all morning.

After hollering (several times) at Google to play "Poor Pitiful Me" by Linda Ronstadt, and the next thing I know I'm listening to Anne Murray sing "Snow Bird", and those wistful lyrics "I'd fly away with you...."

There I was, painting, crying over that song (it was my mother's favorite and how the memories fell in tears), crying over the foot, wrist, and the whole nine-yards. The painting named itself. All I did was listen. And paint despite it all.

The sun kept shining a bit longer, River snored a little longer, and I kept on. By afternoon the rain stepped in, I soaked that foot an hour in Epsom salts, and dug that damn glass out. You do not mess with a Southern woman. Behind every painting is a bit of blood, sweat, and tears....and faith that things will fall in place once again.

What's going on? The show I'm currently in with three other women painters will be up until August 3 at Upstairs Artspace gallery; we'll have an artist talk this afternoon at the gallery. For August, yours truly will be featured in Bold Life Magazine, interview by Norm Powers, photos by Amos Moses who came here on a HOT day, a couple hours behind. Naturally, I had already melted in the heat outside, and figure those photographs will show the artist in meltdown! It's a thrill to be in Bold Life. Here's a link to the article: https://www.boldlife.com/taking-wing/

In late September, I'll be at it again: Open Studio weekend with Art Trek. Also, I'm guest artist of the month at Whimsical World Gallery, Jones Street, Landrum, SC, owned by whimsical artist David Cedrone--located in a historical old church building! Stop in. I'm a fan of David's work! After moving here from Maine, he bought the old church and turned it into a gallery.



Times seem chaotic and unsure: I find solace in going out to my old easel and front porch. The swing is now 'ballerina pink', and the fish pond brims with gold fish, frogs, and ripples in water. Wind chimes sing on the summer breeze.

Tomatoes cluster on a vine, and a crimson mandevilla winds around a white post. A young praying mantis as-green-as spring's-tenderest-leaf peeps at me from the boxwoods. River Dog snoozes and the cat tiptoes soft as a whisper. Such is life here: one more day in an old house in a small town, trying to make ends meet, and singing my heart out with brush strokes and tenderness.



(photo: beauty in the imperfect: yesterday's hibiscus blossom fading)

*if you enjoyed this blog, please share. Even feel free to click those annoying ads (sorry about that!)I think it earned me a whole quarter last month. In the art life, a quarter is good. So click, share, and I'd love you to follow it (scroll down on right side and join in!). Thank you for reading this. It's done with love.