 I've been painting like crazy since I got home, and I don't tend to push myself to sketch if I'm making art exhaustively in another direction, but I did finally get my sketchbook back out Sunday, and it felt good. I had biked to church and found myself with extra time, since I usually walk instead. I wanted to do a quick sketch of the chapel with the paraments I had sewn a few years ago. It turned into a muddy mess, though. So after church I cycled over to the park to spend a little time before meeting friends for brunch, and I decided to add trees. Trees make everything better. It was fun to sit on the other side of the park than I usually do -- faster to get there on my bicycle. Then I continued on to Overton Square for jazz brunch at Lafayette's. All three of Di Anne Price's "boyfriends" now play with a guitarist there every Sunday. I so miss Di Anne on piano and singing her songs, but it's good to still have Sunday music with the guys. 
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 Here are several sketches I did at the time in my sketchbook that I’ve pulled back out as reference material. Watch this space for more to come. If I can’t find it a home, I’ll put it on my own website.  
It's nice to get a two for one. I'd like to do several more, so we'll see how many I can do before I leave my printing press for the next few months.
I'm also, very uncharacteristically, doing a little bit of job printing. I'm not in the business of wedding invitations and the like, since I'd rather make my own art, and I don't have all the spacers, and I'm an incredibly slow type setter. My letterpress fairy godmother gave me some spacers, though, and a couple of dear-to-me folks are getting married, so it seemed the thing to do. It's actually lovely to be involved when I care about the people. Makes it special.  I finished printing the first batch of "Midnight" this morning. The print is based on a journal sketch I did of Amanda Parer's art installation Intrude at the Brooks Museum in Memphis. I did a number of color tests on this one and ended up with a lighter sky and paper. I had thought that perhaps a darker gray would be nice, but it didn't pop as much. I was completely enchanted with this lit up installation. I have a major illustration project in house right now for the national Presbyterian Church, and I have a show to hang March 1, and all my brain can think is "BUNNIES!! I want to make art about BUNNIES." You can see that I caved. Sometimes you just have to go with what's calling your name at that moment. Here are the color tests I did.  And here is the original sketch.   I am so enjoying the Intrude exhibition at Brooks by Amanda Parer. It delights me. Mr. Darcy and I stopped to sketch again yesterday on our way home from the forest. I like the nocturne better, but it was fun to do this one as well. For some serious happiness, treat yourself to two minutes of Bard Cole's marvelous video of the bunnies, beautifully edited and set to music. He caught me there sketching, but of course Mr. Darcy is the real star of that small clip. Thanks to WKNO for putting this out.  Here are a few quick sketches from my week. My favorite is the installation of enormous, inflatable bunnies at the Brooks Museum of Art. It's an installation about invasives and the damage they do by Australian artist Amanda Parer, but she admits it's also winsome, and the child in me is utterly delighted. I was also excited to do such an interesting nocturne piece, and I'll have to go back and do more before they depart Memphis. There was also cake in my immediate past (Muddy's Bake Shop, my favorite), and a trip to the Metal Museum. It's been a lovely week.   I dropped my phlox print off yesterday for an exhibition at Dixon Gallery and Gardens. They're having a retrospective show for artists who have exhibited in the Mallory/Wurtzburger gallery there. I am delighted to have work hanging in that museum again. The opening is this Thursday, January 19, from 6-8pm with music and food. The show will be up through April 9 to complement a show of current American art by the Crystal Bridges museum.
I got to paint from a different angle yesterday. Here's the forest road, the new gateway by Tylur French, and a view across the treetops.   I'm trying another narrative self portrait like the one in Paris against the window of stars. This feels a bit like my Edward Hopper series -- woman alone in a large world.   This piece is based on a sign in the Old Forest where I walk daily. I've loved it for a couple of years. It seems to ask me regularly whether I will or won't step courageously out into the world and open myself up and take risks. I've done that again this fall, with not wonderful results so far, so I'm trying to remind myself to stay open. On the upside, this art is also a staying open to something new, and I'm excited about trying a new direction. So perhaps the results are mixed. And closed off is not how I want to live permanently (though I needed to be there for a while to heal last year), so I keep walking past and thinking about this sign.  I sketched it a few weeks ago and again more recently.  Then Peter Ceren posted this photo of it shining in a patch of sunlight, and I knew I had to go ahead and paint it for real. You can see more of his stunning photos of the forest we both walk daily in on his public facebook page The Old Forest.  First I typeset a couple of letterpress signs for my house, using the pointing hands I got in Paris last year. Sometimes it's good for me to have reminders in my work space. I printed the same image on the gessoed paper I'm using for this painting. I can paint over them if I decide I want to, but at the moment I'm liking the idea of combining letterpress with paint and also having a little bit more oddity and symbolism in this piece. I've been looking at Odilon Redon again and won't go as far out as he did, but the symbolism and surrealism are really appealing to me at the moment. I like that it's subtle but also there. I'll see if I keep feeling that way as I get further into the painting.  It's been a busy week. My Celestial Paris show is now on the walls at Playhouse on the Square (up through Jan.1, and the reception is Friday, November 18 from 5-6:30). Then I went dancing with my sisters to celebrate and blow off steam. So I'm behind posting a bunch of sketches I've done in the last week or so. Here's a whole collection, starting with the Old Forest, of course. The pedestrian section of the Hanrahan Bridge over the Mississippi River just opened. It's a great thing for Memphis, and everyone in town, I think, went down to check it out. I waited till Monday, to let the opening crowds thin out, and then I took a break from show prep. It's about a mile total, over the Arkansas side and out into their flood plain just a bit.  Here are the bridges (there are three together) from Arkansas. A quick line drawing.  And a stop at a downtown coffee shop after.  Tuesday I had an artist do at the new Halloran Center at the Orpheum. I tend to sketch as I listen, whether that's music or meetings.  Wednesday I took a lunch break adventure over to Arkansas again, right near Dacus Lake.  And met an amazing tree there. I'm going to have to go back and paint it more thoroughly. I can see it in a print.  I've got a busy couple of days coming up with seminary and newspaper projects plus a little bit of social life, and then I should be back to making more art.
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Martha Kelly is an artist and illustrator who lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee. To sign up for my emails (show notices, occasional news, and resources I find helpful), fill out this form: To subscribe to this blog, by email: 
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