Welcome!
Never Mind the Mess…
The accoutrements of a mark maker
Random Lucky Captures
My Life, My Art, My Place in the Sun
Welcome to my blog about country living, growing grapes and gardens and the website for my paintings and photography. Since I’ve been blogging since 2008, I DO feel like I’ve shared a lot of my life with my kind readers via this medium.
A snippet from that first Blogger blog, you lucky duckies….
Sunning Vultures Roost
I started a blog as a platform to speak of that which meant most to me. The suffering of those with a mental disorder. An illness. Or illnesses. Suffering. A way to bring together the suffering and the creative impulse into a whole being and try to say I know what it’s like~
Look! I am the mumbling person on the bench you won’t sit beside, shooing your children away, I am the person you shy away from, the one who talks to herself. The one who cries in the grocery check out line. She is real because I am. She lives inside us all. A momentary shift and the mind comes apart. Sometimes never to heal but to manage. To survive and yes, even thrive. And believe me, it is a gift.
Today, there she sits, right beside your impressions clouded by your prejudice and fear. You are blinded by ignorance. Fear. She is a creative and playful human being with loves and hates and desires and miseries, with complexities just like yours.
You and she are not so very different from each other. It is my hope, my intention, that someday this world some are forced to brave each day with a broken heart and a bottle of pills, grows up and sees. We ARE all one… And we are all frail and vulnerable and strong and fierce. After all, we are all human.
Be well my lovelies… 06-23-2008
Ancient Rainbow Oak – 36″ acrylic canvas
My living model that lives outside my bedroom.
My Tree House Art Studio
Today~
I hope you enjoy strolling the fields of our ranch, picking and tasting grapes as they get black-purple, ripe and juicy, picking wild blackberries before the cows or deer get them.
Or raccoons, opossoms, rats and mice, on ad infinitum
Blackberries + The Farmer + Cobbler PLEASE??
Imagine the luscious fragrance of my roses I’m lucky enough to grow here in the Sonoma Mountains. Most especially in the courtyard!
Of course, everything grows well in the courtyard!
ANY courtyard!
bedside roses all summer into fall… heaven
I am an artist, a painter, seeker + meditator, photographer, fair-weather gardener, writer + poet, dog lover, grape grower, grandmother, sky-watcher and English rose lover. I am insanely preoccupied with whatever is awaiting me in my studio!
I try always to bury myself in color-filled palettes of paint.
I truly believe we are all artists and we should all go forward knowing that.
Color is my muse and deepest well.
The paintings and photography you see on my site are not all for sale but what IS available I will make sure you know about. My Etsy shop is not yet open but will be soon. I’m working on it.
I have small original gouache paintings, watercolors, landscapes in watercolor and gouache(my passion), artwork on board and photography of the land, the vineyard and the beauty that is my home.
“Jack Rabbits Picnic”
Giclee prints are available.
If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
~Vincent van Gogh
~~~~~
I have learned one thing …
Nothing ever stays the same.
My grand “babies” no more! One is now as tall as the farmer!
Inside you there’s an artist you don’t know about.
~ Rumi
The lushness of colour and your very wise words speak to me this morning. Your words – ‘Colour is my muse and deepest well’ – along with the beautiful accompanying imager make my heart sing. Thank you…Janet. :)xx
Your words mean much to me, Janet. I’m happy my offerings to you were meaningful. It is true that for me Color IS my deepest muse-in everything I do. It can get a bit crazy! 🙂 Have a lovely, painting day. I hope you have spring popping out all over. xo
Spring is indeed popping up all over the place….even though today is dull, rainy and cold, I can smell and see the beginnings of new life and colour everywhere. Janet. xx
My silly site just crashed on me but will try to say a few words. Thank you for writing and saying hello, Janet. I see spring is coming on fast here and finally the rains have stopped. I have way too many weeds to ever catch up now! I am yearning for my roses but it’s way too early. Funny, it seems like it’s April! xx
I understand…having lost all track of time this year…I am off to the School in Portugal come April, and I know that will be here very quickly. My Mother grew beautiful roses…and when I see them I will always think of her. xx
My my, i have a mess on my hands here. It’s also after 1AM in the morning but I’m a night owl. Not a good practice but I’m too old to change now. 🙂 You are in the morning hours methinks. I envy you going to school come April. A retreat I am hoping. I recall you sharing but am too tired to come read it right now. I make lots of potpourri with my English rose petals all summer. I shall send some to you if I collect enough petals to go around. xx
That sounds wonderful – thank you :)….as for the School which is probably one of the more conducive places ever to enjoy the creative process…I will be there painting for myself for a week or so and then tutoring a course. I have people come from the States, India, France, UK, etc. and so it’s always a most gratifying time. Lots to do before then….a trip to Wales at the end of March/beginning of April and then Portugal. Enjoy your day…surrounded with colour….janet. 🙂 xx
THAT sounds wonderful!! Exhausting but so lovely and deeply gratifying, I imagine. I am envious and we all have our paths. No wonder your work is so magnificent! Lots of practice, no? I have enjoyed the few videos I’ve watched of you working. Amazing and hoping you will someday do more tho I think they would be difficult… 😉
I had many ancestors in Wales! It is extremely doubtful I shall ever visit there however it’s such a beautiful WILD place. 🙂
I am gently floating many colors to fill your day. Now to sleep I must go… Insomnia is a gift and a curse! xo
I lived in Wales for twelve years…yes it is a beautifully wild place….I can feel the colour…:) xx
I watched Poldark… thinking that might be as close as I get to Wales and believe it was filmed there. Of course I watched it for Ross 🙂 not the beauty of the land. A beauty of a day here in Calif. with much sun and cold temps. Perfect! xo
Oh that does sound like perfect weather. I love California…so many different elements to it. Ah yes, Ross….he certainly is kind to the eye. 🙂 Although Wales is a very small country, it’s landscape is quite diverse. The Brecon Beacons and some of the coastal areas are my favourites….and I do love the Welsh people. Enjoy the day…janet. xx
Hi there 😉 exactly 13 minutes past 12 hours after you left this to me. Rare but it’s bright shiny sunshine now here tho I am in bed. Dealing with stomach/gut issues. Docs tossing lots of scary talk i mostly ignore. I’ve learned that’s the best course for those types(docs) … BUT if the scary talk and the scary ideas yield good results and i could get me to wales, well…. it would be worthwhile to “consider”. I’ve already been called a bad patient plenty of times. i always ask what do they expect, i’m hardly a patient person.. 😀 xx
Sweet lady! I will update your site on my blog roll. Glad you are always a click away, even if I “disappear” for spells. I’m still here. And so are you. I thought of you today because I am setting up a site for a client, and I was longing for The Right Color, and thought, what would Country Woman Studio do? She’s so good with color. So my blog took me to your old site (not yet updated) and there was the perfect blue/green/grey pastel I’ve been looking for. Any change you know its name? You were so brilliant and kind in helping me find a color when I last rebuilt my gardening blog. (So many years ago, I believe.) Your paintings and words are as beautiful forever, and you are still in Sonoma. Well done. Do you still have your beautiful white doggie? Looking forward to reconnecting! Love, Kathryn Hall
Good evening, Kathryn! It has been too long. Recently I had wondered about you but couldn’t remember the name of your site! Ah, birthdays! 😊
Currently I’m being held hostage by health challenges but shall get that color name within a few days. Thank you for your always kind words. Linda
ok, here you go…. #b9d7d9!
Since i don’t update that blog anymore, i didn’t think i could get to it but good old firefox view “source” gave it to me. Enjoy!
Meant to write your paintings and words are as beautiful as ever, but I might prefer “forever” as it’s true. <3
Thank you, dear one. Hope you are feeling better soon! These days of rain don’t make it easier. I know you will stay warm and dry and do everything you need to do to make yourself comfy. I will now update your site on my blogroll so others might enjoy your beautiful renderings. Much love and gratitude. Kathryn xoxo
Be well, sweet lady. I will visit soon. xxx
Now I have tried to find you again – let us see if it works! Lovely as usual!
Hello! Yes here I be… sometimes… happy to see you again. 😍Not online much… lots of life happening these past several months! xxx
I thought I had lost you – hope you are OK!
Hello my dear! How are you? Thank you for finding me again, it’s very nice to hear from you again! Lately I’ve been ill thus haven’t been online much less blogging. Hoping to be back in near future, once my doctors let me go! They love to surprise me… 😊
Hopefully they will!
There is much in the world too that needs to be mended.
Hopefully they will! Hugs ♥
Your thoughts, your photos, your art, your life – stunning and vibrant and all things good. It’s my loss that I’ve not been here sooner – guess being in ‘limbo’ while waiting on ‘red tape’ via approval has given me more cyber time than norm.
It is a pleasure to know you through WP, and I look forward to future posts!
Lisa aka ‘Z’
Ah Lisa, you are so kind. I am glad you have enjoyed strolling thru my world a bit. I admit to not knowing what your red tape is about but that never sounds good, having gone thru plenty myself. Sigh…. Hoping all goes quickly. I shall visit with you over at your place soon.
lindaxxx
ah.. red tape, Latin America’s favorite hurdle… mine is for a visa renewal.. no problems.. just the ‘manana’ effect, except each week it’s ‘maybe next week..’ so, while in limbo, i paint! :))
It sounds like my neck of the woods when it comes to permits to plant, blahblahblah. No fun when it’s a visa renewal methinks! Keep painting!! xo
I’m just writing about a painting: George Braque’s L’Olivier près de l’Estaque, and your own tree painting seemed so redolent of it in a certain way. Anyway, good luck with your splendid new site! 🙂
Hi Harold,
How kind of you. And thank you for well-wishes because I need them! 😳
Absolutely okay, L’Adelaide! I was recently called Hairdo by a reader. 🙂
Please accept my apologies as I noticed today I had called you ‘Harold’…. Oh my, I felt bereft at being so thoughtless, distracted but definitely not very mindful at that moment! I don’t think I’ve ever made such a blatant and embarrassing blunder. 🙁 So Hariod, I know I would have noticed had someone misspelled my name therefore, tho you are very kind, you must have noticed it all well. I do try, most of the time, not to be such a dolt! xxx