There are probably a lot of artists out there that hide their art too.  There is something very refreshing about putting new work away, out of site, out of reach, out of mind, whether you are really conscious of it or not.  Before you know it you are busy on something else, then something else, and then one random morning you are holding  a new  French study that hasn’t been seen in four years. That’s what happened to me recently.

I was busy doing something in the studio and I came across this small study, and immediately I knew it was  from Sarlat in the Dordogne  region.  It’s funny how you can lose a whole painting for four years but remember precisely how you painted it that morning. It was misty and damp. I headed right out to paint first thing, finding a view,  working just off of one of the main roads leading into this Medieval town.  It was beautiful out, distant smoke and  rolling small farms.

But my study did not go so well. When your work doesn’t go well it usually means you don’t know what you are doing or you just can’t fix it  then. Sometimes it can be hard to paint on location when the view in front of you, everywhere around you looks so foreign and rich. When I came back to Massachusetts from France I put it away out of view.

So it was very cool to find this hidden study left in its state of discontent.

This was painted in France on a historic morning in my life. This day I realized granola tastes just fine without the milk. You can eat it right out of the box driving down the road looking for a strong place to work. When I found this small oil waiting patiently,  I immediately wanted to paint back into it.  It came together quickly.  It’s probably been percolating in the back of my mind over many  breakfasts.

Feeney,  “Salat France”  9×12 Started on location.

Available at the Rowley Gallery.

A  highlight-dot of color, is how I began to insert  figures into my landscapes as a focal point.  They were so vague and uncommitted, people  would ask, “is that light spot  a figure back there?”

Over the years as my oils changed to become more comfortable depicting people, the single figure is now often a part of the crowd. This has opened up interesting  subjects for me, to the point where I am a dedicated urban painter.

I like standing in the middle of a busy street taking my shots. I do. The funny thing is though, these anonymous faces are starting to feel familiar  now.I know them. When I paint my people I think about whether that  business man’s brief-case is heavy as he is  hurries to get home, trying to make that train.  I consider the window shopper and what day of the week it might be that  I am trying to capture with each piece. Your peeps will have a different vibe when you take your reference pictures on a Saturday rather than a Monday morning commute. These are all elements that are fun to consider as you work in the studio where the imagination runs away with you.

The business man that was catching the train in Paris twenty paintings ago is now following behind a woman in red, looking in vain for that particular shop on Fifth Avenue.

Paris Figures After the Rain

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Fifth Avenue Shoppers,  New York  (partial closeup)

This week opens a big show curated by the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod.

It’s billed as “A Major Exhibition of Over Fifty-Five Cape Cod Artists” shown at the Cotuit Center of the Arts. The exhibition is called First Things First.

I was free to choose any painting,  and I quickly chose a new 18×24″ canvas of  Harvard Square in Cambridge  Massachusetts.  This piece has a bit of  Out of Town News on the left side,  looking down Massachusetts  Avenue.  Actually this is one of those paintings that I thought was complete,  but chose to live with it.  After a while I knew it was not quite finished but  not sure what it needed.   I put it away out of site… for TWO YEARS!  and  forgot about it.

When I found it again recently, I knew instantly what it needed to  finish up strong.  I moved a few things around and took a bus out of the painting, and it opened up the middle to recede wonderfully.  Funny how the creative mind works.

This piece is available at the www.elizabethrowleygallery.com

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This is a oil painting of skaters on the Frog Pond near Beacon Hill. I am posting it to begin getting this site  in the Christmas season with a link to the gallery where it is available.

The Elizabeth Rowley Gallery has an opening today from 4-6pm to showcase new paintings for Christmas time.

I will be there to discuss the recent work, and the public is welcome.

My life has morphed into one big painting.  I love to examine the day to day and edit this for the canvas.  Lately I have been revisiting a favorite subject from my past.  There is a fresh renewed interest in my minds eye for… the interior, not just any interior, no,  for the PUB.

I have done a lot of research in this area, which I will dutifully continue, because it’s my job.  Seeking out the small intimate gatherings of the locals is the first step.  Framing my subject and capturing the the spirit of a place while I am there is important, so that when I am back in my studio  painting, even if it is months later, or  years, I can hear that rooms echo. Feel that days vibe.  Smell the party.

“After Work,  Brooklyn”  2009 8×10″

This is a project that is near to my heart. I grew up on the Cape to the sounds of hammers and bulldozers clearing lots in the most wonderful Chatham woods.  But it does not matter which towns you love on the Cape, the realities of over development are abundant.  Anytime the  opportunity arises to save open space we must seize it.  Please support the Barnstable Land Trust.

Please check out the BLT exhibition opening July 8, 2009 at the Cotuit Center for the Arts. I will be there. For more information about the art benefit please click here

Every week of every class I have ever taught a student at some level has expressed their urgent needs.  Yes they are all in a rush, to what I wonder?

To paint well? The best they can?

To finish every start as quickly as possible?

To sell their paintings? Yes especially this one.

Hey the truth is we all want our art to sell. But if you are rushing the process it’s going to end up in your own collection.

I preach about taking your time with each stage, building slowly. Problem solving.

We are talking about the finish here. Finishing up our work strong. The right way.

And the right way for me is to live with my work. Put it on the wall. Bring it in the kitchen while I cook. Put it in a new frame or two and see how it looks. Turn your canvas upside down and check for false notes. You must look for trouble here. Be your own best critic. Be tougher on your art than anyone else.

Because your client is going to hang your piece in their home or business and live with it, for many years. I want to keep getting the feedback that my work looks great in different times of the day. That my work shows well with the lights off too.

I don’t want to just sell my work. I want  to have it collected.

So I study these strong paintings in my studio, living with them for the last few days before delivery… or not.

Taking my time here.

I have gotten used to looking like an idiot  while taking  my photos a long time ago. So when I go to Fenway and stand in the street framing my reference shots for my paintings, if I am stopping traffic, well…then I am stopping traffic.

I do this alone. Whoever I go with I just say, catch you in a little bit;  meet you inside. While I go off and try and frame up the best compositions of the most festive of Boston neighborhoods.

Fenway was beautiful yesterday with the threat of rain that never came. Everyone outside Fenway Park looks so familiar to me. Like it’s the same crowd at every game I have ever gone to. The same crowd that I paint in all my Fenway paintings.  These are my peeps and I am here among ” The Nation.”

I listen as Dad after Dad bring there little ones over to the condiments where I am pausing and say  “look, this is the mustard, this is the best part.”  The air is thick with the smells of hot dogs, sausage and peppers and people are drinking in the streets which I  still  cannot get used to. I really like what they have done outside here. It was just a few years ago, we were dodging cars on Yawkey Way. Now it’s all festive galore with red everywhere. With as many t-shirts professing their love of the Red Sox as their distaste for the pinstripes.

I move away from the mustard and look for some smokers to stand by and smell the  forbidden aroma. Cigarettes, sausage and the announcer’s voice starts from within the hallowed walls, that sound calling me into the game, where the views just improve.

Yesterday my studio was warm with a fire in the wood-stove, and a new painting on the easel. And I was content to stay in and paint but then something amazing happened. The sun came out, and I really wanted to stay right there and paint. Actually it was out for three hours.

But I could not relax and work because I feared this would be my one chance to get some shots of a superb subject in the sunlight.

I made myself stop working inside and get in the jeep with three camera and go out and get the reference of right now, one of the prettiest weeks of this season. And this was a good move because I had a beautiful Japanese Garden to capture. I began this series last week,  in oils and it is going to go on all year Painting reflections and spring,  heavy with design but subtle with the color harmonies. That’s the plan.

The new painting is still on the easel and the fog has rolled back in.

2009 0il 12″x 20″  Center Field Fenway Park, by Loretta Feeney

On the warmest day of the year, as I write at my kitchen table,  the  Red Sox have won nine games in a row.

My life is revolving around their schedule. I don’t have to watch them on television, but I love to listen to them.  Our third baseman has the made the transition to first in more ways than one. Cleaning up the batting  order and leading this edgy team onward and upward. And it’s only April.

This oil is on Exhibit at the Cape Cod Art Association, West Barnstable, Ma. and then will be available at Trees Place, Orleans Ma. along with other new Fenways.