Spring 2021

Well. It’s almost spring! And it’s been a long, cold, spring not to mention a very isolated 2020-21. So far. Yet our friends and neighbors are gradually being vaccinated, hopefully in a few weeks there will be enough of us to get together and socialize! Wow. What a concept! Who would have thought that our country, and world, would be going through such dire times. And yet. We have, and have managed to end up on the other side...of what? Time will tell.

Meanwhile another papier-mâché landscape has been finished...Tangle with Gila Monster. I have plans for one more, a fifth one, and then I can do a bit of painting.

We have been squirreling away furniture and lamps and table settings for the new outdoor area. Today it looks like we can build the chest and coffee table. It’s finally warm enough! Then? We can sit out there and enjoy life with our puppy, Olle. Watch the sunset. Sip a cocktail. Oooooo I can’t wait! 

And here is Olle. The kindest dog in the entire universe. We are so lucky to have him!

The past couple of weeks, and this is not the first time, I’ve been wondering why I do what I do...paint, sculpt, draw...and there is no answer. More and more thoughts creep in and demand why? What is it accomplishing? Is there even an audience? It all seems so futile...one more piece, finished, and taken out and stored in the garage...what is the point? I wish there was an answer. In the meantime I will continue to create and daydream and look for a place to exhibit.

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OMG! It’s Valentine’s Day in just over a week! How in the world did that happen? Well. If you have NOT yet gotten your Sweetie something, please consider a Hummingbird. And guess what? I have them on my website, or in my Etsy Shop, PicaFlorEtc. Here’s Marisol, with a heart! From the Frida Collection of hummingbird ornaments I started during the holidays. You will also find golden hummingbirds, and rufous and black chin and broad tail varieties, along with two different sets of notecards. Please take a look.

So festive! So perfect for Valentine’s Day!

The Tangle Project is coming along. I now have three completed pieces, and one in the works with a GILA MONSTER! Pretty cool! Here is Tangle with Rattlesnake.

THEN there’s a whole new series of paintings rattling about in my head. Sort of a Milton Avery meets Nicolas de Stael. Here’s one I’ve been playing around with, on paper. Don’t want to waste good surfaces!

The new series is a simplification of shapes and colors involving landscapes of the Southwest. We’ll see. Just having fun for now while I obsess over the Tangles.

So there you have it! My February endeavors. 

Hope you all stay safe and healthy. This scourge does seem to have an end...eventually.

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Open Window

A clean, fresh, breeze is blowing through my head again, since Wednesday, now that our country has been returned. Might we all work together and solve our enormous problems? Wouldn’t that be nice. With those dire problems being Covid, Climate Change, Immigration, that stupid wall, fair taxation, education, infrastructure. I’m sure there are some things left out, but these are just off the top of my head.

Meanwhile, in celebration, I continue on with my papier-mache landscapes. A third one is half way finished and an acrylic box is coming soon to put over the last one. For protection from dust and puppy dogs. 

These are the pieces that will soon all be attached to that little round ‘thing’ in the foreground. Still have to finish painting, then drawing and carving on each piece. 

Oil paint is starting to creep into my brain and I have an idea I’ll be working on in the next few weeks. Hopefully it’ll be a good one! We’ll see! I did just buy an enormous amount of oil paint and realized I might should use it. Of course. I will continue on with these landscapes, they are so enjoyable.

And here we are. 2021. It took a long time to get here and after the devastation of 2020 lets hope it’s a powerful year of creativity, health, innovation, and respect for our environment. The very things missing from 2020. At least where our government was concerned. Well. There were so many things missing from the old regime it’s hard to start listing them. But. You know.

Have to say, being an introvert, I’ve been happily sequestered in my studio these past 10 months with my puppy, Olle, and my artwork. I’ve managed to complete a series of paintings for my show at Hat Ranch Gallery if things ever open again. The illustrations for my husband, Sandy’s, book are finished. That took about 5 years to do. And then there was the Frida Hummingbird Collection. They did well for the holidays, below. I am eager to start new ones come spring. 

And then there was the prototype for the horse collection I’ll get busy on for next winter.

And then here is the box of new pieces for my next papier-mache landscape:

I’m keeping busy! Oh. And here’s Olle. 11 months old and 35 pounds! Now that’s a big boy!

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Thanksgiving. 

I’m in the kitchen waiting for the goose to cook. One more hour? Maybe! Meanwhile am boiling the stock, have made the blueberry pie, and will do the mashed potatoes when the goose is done. Even though the dinner will only include my husband, my dog, and me, it will still be special. The good things? No housecleaning for company, no over eating, not many dishes. Perfect! We’ll reconnoiter in the summer with friends and do all of the holidays we missed together!

Not being crazy busy has also allowed me to work on my hummingbird ornaments and papier-mache landscape. And troubleshoot computer problems rearing their ugly heads all week. Of course it’s when we do our catalog for Labyrinth, and there’s a holiday. It never fails. But we’re back on track and will have the first pass ready on Monday. 

Don’t forgot Artist Sunday this Sunday. A chance to peruse a plethora of artists’ sites for holiday gifts. My site is www.caroltippitwoolworth.com. Please check it out! There will be hummingbird ornaments, notecards based on my hummingbird paintings and Alexander Godard diorama paintings. Books. Paintings! 

And so it goes. Tuesday. Again. The days go by in a rush of hope and angst, then hope again. The need to brush up on my french has subsided and now I can relax into my Santa Fe home with the pleasure I’d been anticipating for the past 4 years, although I am plugged into the Jane Birken radio on Pandora. There’s still that desire to live in France before I’ve breathed my last breathe. We shall see. And Winter has arrived along with the revived hope. This morning I awoke to 26º and the trees bare. I love this time of year! 

A new papier-mache landscape is in the works with will include some tiny horses, a lizard, and a prickly pear, along with some dried up old cholla branches found on one of my hikes. It’s coming along and a joy to work on since there are so many stages...creating the forms, applying paper clay, sanding, applying gesso, sanding again, painting, carving with my micro engraver, then finishing the whole thing with a varnish. I’m at the gesso stage today.

Hummingbirds are creeping into my brain again. I have 10 ornaments to paint, and will do some more before the holidays. Plus think I’ll get back to the little paintings. Now that the little fellas have moved south until spring I miss them!

That’s it! Hope all of you are enjoying a lovely autumn week.

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Election Day. 

Finally. It’s certainly the day I’ve been waiting for since November 2016. It will be a very long day...but I’m ready!

The past few days, since the Blue Moon, I have been mourning the passing of my wonderful friend in Paris. Not from COVID...but the other scourge...cancer. She fought valiantly for several years, even visiting me here in Santa Fe back in 2018...two years almost to the day. Her creativity was legend, as was her beauty. Her expanse of friends filled her life with joy and constant visitations. Did I mention her generosity? Also legend. Paris will forever be a memorial to Dora.

Meanwhile my papier-mache landscapes continue. One is now finished, another one in process. This latest  one will entail found objects along with the papier-mâché, and a dusting of pigments I bought 6 years ago or so in Roussillon, the Santa Fe of France, while leading an artist workshop in the Luberon Valley. I never knew what to do with them until now, but the fit is perfect. Natural pigments rubbed on to the objects after they’ve been painted and carved, to create a bit of ethereal color tinting the designs.

If anyone is out there reading my blog today, please vote. This is the election of our lifetime.

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First Storm of Winter 2020

The Weathermen say we could have anywhere between 6” to 12” of snow in the next couple of days, along with intense cold reaching into the 10s. I’m all for it! Even more of an excuse to hunker in and work on my project, which is coming along nicely. In fact visions of the next one have been haunting me day and night. It will have something to do with cactus. 

Friday, before the weather turned, Sandy and I hiked the La Cieneguilla Petroglyph site for decimated chola branches which will be part of the new project. What amazing forms these branches create as they molded in to oblivion.

The pieces might have moveable parts so as to engage one to participate in each sculpture. The main parts...ie snake, animal, rock, gravel...will stay stationary, and the branches and additional animals and insects will be able to change positions as per the viewer. Think it’s a cool idea, thanks to Bob, our longtime friend. I’m also thinking of putting a glass cloche over each one to protect from dust and missing pieces. It’ll hold each sculpture together yet enable it for viewing.

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Around 8 years ago I won a prize as Best Emerging Artist 2012 via the Delaware Division of Art, and a certain amount of money accompanied this prize, some of which was spent on paper clay. I had an idea. I wanted to create tabletop 3D landscapes and thought maybe paper clay could work for this idea. It didn’t require glazes or kilns, just a pair of hands and some paint. 

Jump start to 2016 and a new life in Santa Fe, and the table top landscape idea still roaming around in my brain, and a chance encounter with James Morrison, a Papier Mache artist creating small landscapes, while googling Papier Mache landscapes. And perfect timing, since I needed an escape from painting after completing a new series. This would be it! The Escape! Thus, out came the paper clay, the wire and masking tape, the aluminum foil, and gesso. 

So for a few weeks I’ve been lost in this new work of fantasy animals and rocks and branches and leaves, and playing around with my new micro engraver, an incredible tool. And I now have the pieces needed to start arranging on one of my wooden cigar box tops. The perfect base.

So all pieces are formed and gessoed and sanded and ready to start the drawings on the objects. My thought is painting these objects with black acrylic paint and carving out a design with the new micro engraver. We shall see. Once this is figured out and completed I’ll have to figure out how to attach each piece to the base. One step at a time. It’s nice learning as I go. It has been a long time since I’ve been so engrossed in something new and challenging. Plus the 3D element after so many years of 2D has been a joy to explore.

October 9, 2020

Has it truly been five years since I last wrote here? And oh my, what a difference five years can make in ones life. 2016 brought in the biggest test to this country we have ever witnessed and which still reverberates...hopefully not for much longer. 2016 also moved us from Wilmington DE to Santa Fe NM which was a move to Paradise and endless land and space and art and, well, escape. Even though the world seems to be crumbling around us Santa Fe has been a perfect safe haven to ride out anything that can be thrown our way. This may not be true, but it seems like it is.

Why Santa Fe? Art. Culture. Landscape. It’s a place I’ve always been trying to get to, and finally succeeded. And the town embraced me with entrances into several galleries (two of which have closed) and another one out on the Turquoise Trail. Turquoise Trail? Isn’t that exquisite? Who has a Turquoise Trail in their neighborhood? The gallery on the Turquoise Trail is Hat Ranch Gallery. I still have a presence there.

So here I am. Have just completed a series of oil paintings using vignettes from the Alexander Girard Dioramas up at the International Folk Musuem, and am cleansing my brain with a Papier mache project I’d visualized 10 years ago. We will see how that goes. I am awaiting a micro engraving pen today so as to explore texture and line on the Papier mache objects. We. Shall. See. In the meantime here is a piece from the Abstract Narrative series of Hispanic figures. Los Ninos de las Bandas.

The Sky Is Falling!

The world is in flux.

After a generation of relatively mild times, at least if you're from the US, everything seems as if it's been shaken and left to fall as it may. ISIS...the scariest of things, along with Climate Change which has taken a firm hold on our planet...is what scary stories are made up of...Barbarians bombarding the gates of civilization as civilization tries to figure out what to do...whether it's a real threat...YES...whether the rest of the world wants to take on another war...YES...this one is for real. Unfortunately it seems as if the rest of the world is tired out from all of the fake wars. Big bummer. It reminds of of the early days of the Nazis...when everyone thought the threat would go away, or wasn't really that bad, and no one did anything while the evil doers kept doing evil. And when the rest of the world woke up it was too late, at least for a less catastrophic retaliation. Are we at that same point? Watching this crazy, disciplined, group continue to march and triumph in city after city, while we dither about how to conduct an air campaign? It is not reassuring...

Flying Cowboys

A new theme to work with...Flying Cowboys. Revenge paintings, where the horse wins. And something whimsical in a way, with a bit of humor. Which is needed, humor, while we continue the long wait for the right buyer to come along and fall in love with our home.

Santa Fe awaits. A dream I've mulled over for forty-five years at least. Way before I headed east, to Manhattan and Connecticut and Delaware, where I've now lived over half my life.  Santa Fe seems Mecca. A place to breath and paint and explore. Near to family and old friends. Back west where so much is familiar and yet not. I long for the endless vistas and spanish flavors of architecture and food and ancient people. I long for escape. That's more like it. A place to curl up and forget the world and daily atrocities.

Ha. If only there were such a place. Perhaps through my paintings I am finding my perfect world.

Where Am I?

It's been a crazy two days.

We are supposed to go up to Valatie NY on Sunday for my Brother-in-Law's memorial. Ron Kleemann. A true character and incredible photo-realism painter, and presence, which will be sorely missed.

I made the reservation for the hotel up there a few weeks ago, and yesterday I realized I wasn't exactly sure where I made it. There is no email record and the couple of places I think I MIGHT have made it say there's nothing there with my name. So...I'm flummoxed.

Meanwhile Sandy, my husband, has been incapacitated with a horrible neck spasm, so I canceled the dog reservation. But now the neck is better so we think we'll go if we can find a place. And the place I think we may be able to find a room allows dogs. This might work out better than before!

Ron created some incredible works of fire trucks and nascars and Macy's balloons. He was a master of puns, and oh so generous--with his time, with his hospitality, with his praise. He leaves a giant hole, physically, but inside my head he remains vividly alive and well. Farewell Ron.

Dog Days

They are here, the Dog Days of Summer and yet today is lovely. Feels almost as pleasant as Santa Fe. Meanwhile I've been working on a 48 x 48" painting which started out as a trio of horses, then morphed into a landscape of the Bonita Pueblo ruins, and has ended up a landscape of the fields of Aude, France.

Painting these fields was like coming home. Gone was the obsession that I had to change my style, do something new. Gone was the sense my work just wasn't good enough. Instead I painted from the heart, the fields merging into each other, vaguely separated by borderless color, scumbling intense hue over intense hue until the fields shimmer in the sun. I am liberated!

Westward Ho!

Northern New Mexican landscape

We are are heading West!

Well.

After our house sells, and it's only been on the market 9 days. But still...we will get there eventually. 

Santa Fe has always beckoned. Driving route 66 in the 50s and 60s, through the intense geology of the high plains and buttes, passed the abandoned ancient pueblos tucked into the bluffs and mysterious navajo indians walking along the roads in their velvets and heavy silver and turquoise jewelry. I can hardly believe I will soon be part of this enchanted area! And things seem to be lining up well with some friends introducing us to their friends in Santa Fe. Plus our excellent friends waiting for us there who have been incredibly generous already as we've looked for houses.

So the adventure begins!

The foot of snow from the past couple of days looks so much cheerier with the sun out. Instead of endless grey, color is back...on the brick walls, the evergreen ivy and pine trees, the blue sky. Hallelujah! Now I can go into the studio and work on the horses I've been working on without feeling closed in and troubled by the howling winds of yesterday. Here's another of my favorite artist, Elmer Bischoff. This one evokes the grey sky of yesterday, but there is still something to look forward to here. The colors of the rooftops, the bay, and yet it is a mournful painting.

What I love about this painting are the simple (seeming!) shapes and colors and how they remind me of my childhood in California. The subtle colors...the sometimes stormy sky. Yet even though, with the green trees popping up through the rooftops, it reminds of my home now on the east coast. Double melancholy!

To MFA or not to MFA, that is the question...

The past week I've been wondering about whether or not to pursue an MFA at 60 years of age. Should I? Is it worth it? Will it effect my art journey in any way? On the one hand it would be fun. I'd get to almost everyday, all day long. I'd get to attend classes, which I love to do. I'd be able to have my work critiqued by fellow artists and professors. I'd understand the 'secret' dynamics of the art world. On the other hand it would cost a lot of money and time. And for what? At this age is it worth it? The thing is, I want to show my work in decent galleries across the country. Mainly because I have so many paintings they need to go out into the world! Right now there are hundreds floating around my house, leaning against walls, stacked in the basement. Good paintings. Paintings people like! And yet here they are collecting dust. So here is my dilemma. What to do with the rest of my life! Meanwhile I search for artists, whose work I admire, checking their credentials, seeing how I stack up.

One of my favorite artists, David Park, didn't even finish college, yet wound up teaching at UC Berkeley. He so dedicated to painting that he couldn't stop himself, and that dedication was enough to be recognized. It wasn't about a degree, rather about the work. When did it all change? In the 70s, when I was getting my BA in Art, the work was the important thing. If it was good, said something, it was enough. Then all of a sudden, in the 80s, it changed. Was it at the same time when art was becoming a commodity? Um. Perhaps yes. And perhaps it's sour grapes on my end. If I'd only... So. What to do.

Back after all these years!

Greetings! Has it truly been six years since my last post? Goodness. How did that happen? But those 6 years have been very protuctive...creating paintings from our yearly trips to the south of France which include: the vineyards and towns of St-Emilion; the seaside village of Collioure; the Plane trees of Cerét; the hilltop villages of the Luberon Valley. Then there are the landscapes of New Mexico, Lancaster County PA, and the marshes at Broadkill, near Rohobeth Beach DE. And the Vessel paintings based the Native American pots, and the conceptual paintings of bottles and balls in an attempt to portray the sense of alienation in our culture today. In other words busy! And on top of work in the studio my husband and I have created Art Works France...weekly painting workshop offered several times of year to the Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon areas of southern France. We are organizing our third year of workshops now. Here is one of my paintings from Collioure:

I've also started doing Pet Portraits...cats...and dogs...and even a bird, Rudy! So stay tuned. I am ready to unwind the past years, and share my current life in art, once more. Meanwhile, please hang in there as I try to figure out what I did to organize this blog 6 years ago...not for the faint of heart!

Exhibition Updates

Paintings are lined up ready to be photographed and posted but just haven't had the time! Several shows are in the offing. The first is coming up this Friday, Sept. 8th. I am part of a faculty show at the Delaware College of Art & Design (DCAD). Two swimming pool paintings can be found there. The opening is also this Friday, I believe 5-7pm. Then, I have been invited into a show at Hardcastle Gallery which will take place in October. November through December I will have a solo show of small still life paintings at the Wilmington Music School. I don't have a date yet for that opening, but it will not be part of First Friday. Stay tuned. In February I will be having a show at Blue Streak of all the swimming pool paintings. That opening will be the first Friday of February 2008, but I'm not sure about the exact date...so again...stay tuned. Thank you for your interest! If you have any question or comments please email me at ctipworth@aol.com.

Lenis 9

50 x 23
Oil on linen