Balloon 3/30

Balloon, collage/acrylic, 6 x 6

Elizabeth W. Seaver
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This is the first of five in a subtitled series (under the main series, What Birds Do When People Aren't Watching) "Ingredients for an Ostrich Birthday Party." I'll bet you never even thought about ostriches having birthdays. Shame on you! If you are ever invited to one, and invitations are as rare as hen's teeth--by all means, go. But be sure to take a present, and wear your best party hat.

Argh, Matey! 2/30

Argh!, collage/acrylic, 6 x 6, Elizabeth W. Seaver

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Avast! Here is me second painting of thirty, which now joins Archibald and 28 "Mateys" on the wall in the McGuire Woods Gallery in W-16 at The Workhouse at Lorton, VA. Please go by and see them. Don't be afraid. All walkings of the plank have been suspended for the duration of the show.

But here is something to ponder...What would you do if you came back to your pile of clean laundry to find a filthy pirate in possession of it? Would you run away screaming? Would you don an eyepatch and fight along side him? Or would you engage the scurvy swab in a duel for your dresses, a swordfight for your socks, an ferocious undertaking for your underwear, or give him a pounding for your pants? Are you a man, woman or mouse? Leave your responses below in the comments section. 

(Truly, I won't judge you because yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum -- I'm already into the eggnog!  See you tomorrow with painting number 3.)

What Birds Do When People Aren't Watching

 Archibald on a High Wire, collage/acrylic, 6 x 6

by Elizabeth W. Seaver

What Birds Do When People Aren't Watching is the theme of my 30 x 30 installation in W-16 at The Workhouse in Lorton, VA. I and twelve others have accepted the challenge of painting 30 paintings in 30 days on 6 x 6 Masonite panels. I chose to do mine in collage with acrylic, leaving some of the paper under painting showing on each one. They sell for $95 each. I go to hang my work tomorrow.

The show opens on the Friday after Thanksgiving, November 23rd. I will be demonstrating 4:30-6, during the opening scheduled for 5-7 in McGuire-Woods gallery upstairs in the main building, W-16. (Note: I belong to the Workhouse Associates Gallery which shows monthly in the downstairs gallery in that same building, so there is even more of my work to see!)

In addition to the show opening, The Workhouse is hosting a big blowout November 26 all across the campus 9-7. You will find wonderful artworks in all media, and each building will have activities, food and fun for the whole family. Anyone in the NoVA area, please stop by.

I plan to blog for the next 30 days, publishing one of these new pieces each day for as long as they (or I) last! They will come to you in alphabetical order.

Dancing Turnips

Turnips, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24

Elizabeth W. Seaver

Maybe Disco Turnips is a better name...anyway, more in my purely vegetarian series. They join Rabbit's Delight II and Dahling You Look Radishing! No telling what might pop up from under ground next.

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I am showing up at National Institutes of Health in Bethesda as part of a program which puts arts in health care facilities. My husband and I delivered ten paintings up there early this morning, and they will remain through the first week of January, 2013.

Lillian Fitzgerald and her sister, Gretchen, are responsible for the shows at NIH and for buying art to place in area hospitals in Virginia. They purchased a work of mine for Charlottesville's new Martha Jefferson Hospital in January, 2011. Gretchen and Lillian decided to place it in a pediatric area, which was the perfect setting.

Fieldwork

Fieldwork, 18 x 36, mixed media

Elizabeth W. Seaver

I am so thankful that my little corner of the Mid-Atlantic region survived Hurricane Sandy relatively unscathed. My heart goes out to everyone affected by the storm.

For me and mine, what's left is cleaning up--a whole bunch of fieldwork.

Anticipation and Writing

Anticipation, 24 x 39, collage on Masonite board

Elizabeth W. Seaver

I gave Maisie a besotted mother smile, the one we have before the reality of spit-up, poop, sleepless nights and talking back truly sets in. If you have enough actual distance from those good old days, it's easy to look back on them fondly. I'd always heard that the mind is a compassionate organ, now I know what that means. The spit-up, talking back, etc., fades and is replaced with the memory glow of warm, sweet-smelling, relaxed baby weight in your arms. Maisie is in that honeymoon phase with her potential chick, taking just a moment to rest her "sitter" before she gets back to tedious process of incubation.

I'm not a nostalgic person. I have always said I live firmly in the present. I don't think the past is better, or the future. I don't spend lots of time talking about how great high school was or wonder what happened to that old boyfriend. I even listen to top 40's music, to the complete embarrassment of my children (indie music mavens), but I believe something in my world has shifted. And I'm afraid I've pinpointed what it is.

I have more past in my past than future in my future. It is so strange. I try to write a story, and it's often about someone my age or older. I try to write some sort of adventure, and an event that really happened to me stands right in the middle of what I had planned to be great modern fiction. 

My new realization was really brought home when I read a story at my writing group, recently. It was about traveling on family vacations when my brother, sister and I were small. For two of the group, I had written a funny, "universal" story--can you guess how old they are? To the two members who are 18 and 20-something, I suspect my tale was like some distant, dry, slightly out of focus account from a history book--vintage, but not in a cool way. Crickets chirped when I finished. A car with no air-conditioning? No seat belts? No dvd player in the back seat to entertain the restless? No laughing from that quarter.

So it caused me to ponder: Should I find some way to make my stories appealing to all ages with language and images? Can I do some research to see whether I'm stuck in old lady story/vintage land or whether I can somehow airlift myself into the 21st century? Or maybe, no upheavals are required just yet. I will continue finding the rhythm of my writing and see what happens.

There's one more possibility, which if a writer has enough ego, usually ends up being the last thing she'd ever consider. It's just possible that my story wasn't very good. 

And that, my friends is what writing groups are for!

Burford

Burford Surveys His Crops, acrylic on linen, 22 x 28

Elizabeth W. Seaver

I'm sorry to say that Farmer Burford lost his tractor in a poker game, so he must ride his old bicycle about the farm. Today, he's just making an inspection, but when he has to pull the plow, he regrets his profligate ways most deeply. 

Neither he nor Nettie Burford are sitting on their wings. Nettie, even now, bakes cookies, cakes and pies in their farmhouse kitchen to sell at church tomorrow. Burford cannot bake, but he has the best idea ever. It's such a good one, he hasn't even told Nettie yet--it's a surprise. He's setting himself up in a kissing booth, right on the church steps. 

 

Wouldn't you pay a dollar to kiss this bird on your way into church? He really needs his tractor back.