This one's for Marianne

 My cousin Kirsten and I have a friend named Marianne, who has lived in Vermont for some years now but who used to be a Valley Girl. She is one of the most consistently artistic people I've ever met, in multiple media—drawing, painting, fabric arts, there isn't anything she won't take on. Between a small child support payment for her son, Rex, and a few sales of her art plus the occasional odd job, Marianne managed to eke out a living without having to sacrifice too much of her time to "the man." So she was always up for an outing if one of us called and said "Let's go to the movies."

You never knew, however, who would be showing up. Marianne was a person who believed that getting dressed was either an opportunity to put together some elaborate costume, or a totally haphazard matter of grabbing whatever was at the top of the ironing basket or on the foot of the bed. If you were her friend, you couldn't be one of those people who felt that the person with whom you were seen in public somehow reflected on your own good judgment; you had to have the self-confidence to be you and let Marianne be Marianne.

The last time I remember meeting her for a movie, Marianne was wearing a lime green and Prussian blue plaid jacket over a white T-shirt with a unicorn on it, paired with a rayon skirt patterned with large pink and orange poppies, rainbow-striped over-the-knee stockings, and her favorite orange plastic clogs.

The weather turned cold this weekend after a long period of Indian summer, and my floor furnace isn't working. The temperatures dipped down into the 30s last night, and all I had between me and the cold was a tiny space heater and whatever clothing I could pile on. I took a look at myself in the mirror this morning and started to laugh: I was Marianne come to life, in a mustard yellow T-shirt, my old navy sweater with a couple of gaping moth holes in it, some pink polka-dotted pajama bottoms worn over the top of baggy gray leggings, black socks, and heather wool slippers, and covering it all a turquoise plaid flannel bathrobe.

So this one's for you, Marianne. Pandemic Chic for the remote worker, circa Winter 2020. When I told Kirsten about my outfit, she laughed and said "Well, just don't go out of the HOUSE like that." At eight months and counting, the pandemic worsening all around us, I guess we'll have to wait and see...

Featuring Gidget and my space heater, and picturing me turning blue from the cold...

"Pandemic Chic Selfie": Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, black Uniball Vision pen, white Signo gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Mother and son

 I found a photo of Lisa with her son Ian, and thought it was the most joyful photo, him laughing full out and her looking a little goofy, the two of them so much alike in spirit, so I decided to paint them.

As usual, things didn't go quite as I planned—Lisa got too big to leave room for Ian's full face above her...but as it turned out, it made me think of Athena springing fully formed from the head of Zeus, so the fact that his face is partially obscured as if he's emerging out of her brain is okay with me. (Or at least that's the story I'm telling!)

Then I found this saying from Emerson, which seemed to go right along with the theme, so here it is: "Out of the Brain of Lisa."

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, India ink, black Uniball Vision pen, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

UGLY

 For perhaps the first time in my "career" as a painter, I purposely painted something ugly. I'm not just talking about the images, although they are pretty bad, but the caption, and the thought and intention that went into it. And right now, I'm not sorry.

I may regret it later. But tonight I felt the need for a political statement. Tonight I felt the need to say, Okay, in 2016 it could have been a mistake, a misunderstanding of who he is, or else "anyone but Hillary" syndrome. But after four years of misogyny, racist hatred and bigotry, after his disrespecting everyone from the handicapped to the soldiers in our military, after four years of watching him encourage the absolute worst qualities of humanity in everyone surrounding and following him, after the cheating, the stealing, the compulsive and continuous lying, the complete lack of any redeeming virtue or feeling, and the total and complete neglect of an entire country at risk of death or permanent damage from a pandemic the likes of which we have never seen, THEY STILL CHOSE HIM. They actually chose more. They said, Keep it up, we like it, we approve.

And we who were desperate to be rid of him, we who worked for years to get out the vote to purge him and his kind from our government and yes, please, our country, and from our sight and from our minds, we who hold values and ethics and each other dear, have to come to terms with the fact that 50 percent of our country, 50 percent of the so-called United States population (what a joke) would rather keep him, for the simple reason that they believe (erroneously) that he will help them hang onto their money.

That's what it comes down to. Money, and clusters of not-yet-sentient cells in women's wombs. Never mind the people being evicted by the landlords of the apartment buildings his son owns, because they can't pay because they have no work because he let the pandemic get out of control and shut down the economy. Never mind the hundreds of immigrant children whose parents can't be found and who will probably live out their lives with strangers, heartbroken. Never mind those of us who are about to lose both our health care and our Social Security. Never mind the willful continued destruction of the environment and the blatant alienation of every other nation on earth. Never mind all that. Save the fetus, save the 401K. That was their rallying cry.

So here they are, in all their ugly glory. These are the people with whom we are supposed to make common cause to put the United States back together, once this endless counting process is over and Joe Biden is, Jesus willing, our new president.

You know, I just don't see that happening.

Pencil, gray gel pen, Daler Rowney inks, watercolor, silver Lumin/Arte paint, white gel pen, Uniball Vision pen, 9x12 inches on Fluid watercolor paper.

Lisa smiles

 My very first portrait in Deb Weiers's class was of my friend Lisa. It was exceedingly wonky, because I did it as instructed, as a blind contour. Although I really liked the way it turned out from an objective standpoint, it wasn't very flattering to Lisa; so tonight when I saw a photo of her that I had saved, relaxed and smiling while surrounded by her family, I decided to do a portrait that, while using some wild colors and some interesting textures, was still fairly realistic as regards likeness.

I think I mostly pulled it off, although the chin and jawline are perhaps a little heavy. But she was smiling ear to ear and I wanted to convey that sense of joy.

Daler Rowney inks, pencil, white gesso, Uniball pen, white gel pen, India ink, on Fluid 140-lb. watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

(Here is the original, blind contour portrait.)

I Am Sassa

 I made the discovery on Facebook of an artist in, as she puts it on her website, "West by god Virginia," who has taken on an immense challenge. The day after Ruth Bader Ginsberg died, she was feeling low so she picked up her brushes and painted a portrait of the icon while listening to podcasts about her life. It made her feel so much better that she decided a big commitment was in order, so she thought, since there were exactly 100 days left until the end of the year, that she would challenge herself to paint a portrait a day! They are all "badass women," known for their accomplishments, their diplomacy, their artistry, including inventors, innovators, politicians, scientists, musicians, a little of everything.

Since she started the project she has received not only a lot of attention (including local television coverage) but a lot of suggestions for whom to include in the array, some with complete histories of their lives and accomplishments. She is keeping it spontaneous by choosing each morning who she will paint that day, and the paintings take from three to more than 12 hours apiece to complete, depending on their complexity, all while trying to live the rest of her life on the side. I have immense respect for this 39-year-old painter! (I often wonder what would have happened had I kept painting at 19 instead of deserting it until I was 45. This is a good example...)

I've been following the project and have had some online interaction with her, and I decided yesterday that she deserved to have her own portrait painted. So here is Sassa, another badass woman for the gallery.

Daler Rowney acrylic inks, pencil, Uniball Vision pen, India ink, Uniball Signo white gel pen, white gesso, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12.

Partners

 Today I decided that my farmer needed a wife, so I went looking for the quintessential woman for the job. I eventually decided on this one partly for the faraway look in her eyes that are used to looking out across fields, and partly because she has a sun bonnet like Grandmother Allie used to wear. Also like Allie, she has on one of those house dresses washed so many times that the flower pattern has faded to a vague white figure, and an apron with capacious pockets (not included here) to carry around such things as shears or rose pruners or a small trowel—whatever is needed for the job at hand.

I called this "partners" rather than spouses because farmers, male and female, are by necessity closer partners in their work than most urban or suburban couples, given that they both depend on the same thing for their livelihood. Although they may have tasks traditionally defined by gender, both are usually capable of doing any of their partner's tasks interchangeably, from hoeing a field to driving a tractor to milking a cow to cooking a pot of black-eyed peas.

This one was harder to paint than was her male counterpart. It seemed obvious that his face would be weathered and colored by the weather, but she with her bonnet would be paler and more protected, so the colors are softer and less defined. She also should have had a heavier shadow on the top half of her face from the shielding bonnet, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it! I tried to repeat enough of the colors I used on him, albeit in diluted form, so that the two portraits could be hung together. I think it worked...?

Pencil, Daler Rowney acrylic FW inks, watercolor, black Uniball Vision pen, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Angela again

 I painted Angela Davis's portrait once before, but that was when I was still striving for realism, so I decided to paint her again in my new style. I wanted it to be a sort of companion piece to James Baldwin, but not in the same colors I used for him, so I studied photos of her and decided on a color combination of yellow, orange, and purple. It wasn't that she ever dressed in those bright colors—quite the contrary, she seems to favor grays and greens—but that I saw something bright in her face that asked for them.

I went farther than I had planned with the hair treatment, and I really wish I had stopped where my first impulse said to, where it was more indicated and less specific. Her eyes are larger than in life, but that goes along with the new methods; I'm hoping that in this case it didn't render her less recognizable. Anyway, I guess the quote will take care of that, even if the likeness isn't perfect.

Daler Rowney inks, pencil, white gesso, Uniball Vision, white gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.