I have loved the Walter Anderson Museum (WAMA) for years now. Anderson is one of my top art heroes, along with John Constable (for his life and work habits as well as for his gorgeous landscapes), Georgia O’Keefe (for her strong independence and her love of place as well as for her paintings), and a handful of others. Anderson, like both of those others, had a deep and strong connection to the landscape he lived in and an absolute need to share his vision of its loveliness with others through the art he relentlessly made. He is not well known outside the south, where he spent his life living in his boyhood home of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and painting the coast, wildlife, and barrier islands, but I think he’s one of the best artists America has produced, along with Sargent and O’Keefe.

WAMA is a magical place for me. They not only have a massive number of his free standing paintings, but they have his boat, his bicycle, and (most importantly) two different rooms covered in his murals. You can completely immerse yourself in color and form and pattern on all sides. The secret room he painted (solely his until his death, with no one else allowed to see it) brings me to tears every time I stand inside it. I’ve been trying to get down this spring, since it’s now been several years. I cancelled not one but two reservations due to sickness, but the universe gave me a gift this week. I had three pieces accepted into a group show at this museum that I love. The theme is water, which is perfect for me, since I’ve been doing waterscapes since last summer. Two of my oils and the above print will need delivering down next month.

I’ll get a delightful “mini-break” as the Brits say between art drop off and the opening two days later. I had originally planned use to shoot down overnight, and I’m excited to have such a marvelous reason to stay for three nights instead. I’ll immerse myself in the museum, visit Shearwater pottery (the family business Anderson grew up in, which remains in the hands of the current generation), and spend a little time at the beach. Careful readers will remember my glee a few months ago when I found a Shearwater teapot at a local antique mall. It’s gorgeous but also has several cracks. I may get myself a new one for daily use and to mark this special occasion.

The opening is April 18, 6-8pm, if anyone would like to join me for a mini break at a place that will stay with you for a long time.

It finally got warm out here in Washington, and I spent one blissful afternoon in my favorite park wearing a tank top and walking around with my sketchbook. Above is a stone beach I love, the finished sketch plus a process shot with just the fountain pen line drawing. Below is the view in the other direction.

I’ve been making the rounds of the diners out here in Washington. I’m on a semi-vacation — I brought a couple of intricate print blocks, but they’re going slowly. I’m also knitting a good deal, since my best teachers are out here. I’m trying to lock in the techniques for socks to take home with me. So I haven’t had much to show here recently, but I did do a few sketches at various meals. Perks, my new favorite spot, has real teapots, excellent pancakes, kind and funny people, and a great sound track. That’s more than enough to fall in love with.

I totally lucked out this weekend and found a teapot in an antique mall from Shearwater Pottery in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. The studio is owned by the family of Walter Anderson, one of my absolute favorite artists. He did designs for them as well as doing his own work. I have a few of their wine glasses and had recently been dreaming of a teapot and thinking of taking a trip down to the coast. Then this one appeared. It’s got a stylized spout, and I wish I knew how old it is. Beautifully it matches my very favorite tea cup and cream pitcher from Paris, which are also happenstance matches from different “brocantes”, my favorite French word. It means a second hand sale place, anything from a fancy antique shop to a flea market to a yard sale. It has the mystery and excitement of treasure hunting about it, and I love that the one word spans that whole spectrum.

I needed a quiet morning today, so I did a little printing, a little journal writing, and I also painted my new teapot as a celebration.

Here are a few photos of Walter Anderson murals in Ocean Springs. I’m still longing to get back down there.

I made it through three shows and two sets of houseguests (all delightful to see) in a week and a half period, and I was due for some serious vacation. I’m out in Washington state, sleeping late, reading lots of baseball news, hitting some truly great thrift stores, and revisiting some favorite places in an unexpected streak of sunshine. I’ve managed exactly one sketch so far, and I’m trying not to put too much pressure on myself. It’s sometimes good to take breaks.

I have been taking photos as I walk though. The frost is amazing, especially since I stay right along the Skagit River. I’d always heard the term “hoar frost” in the British novels I read, but I hadn’t been sure what exactly it was. It turns out that mist and fog rising off rivers in cold conditions can freeze in almost sculptural ways. I’ve had fun taking some photos.

The frost in the great meadow at Rasar State Park (one of my magic places) extends only into about a third of the meadow and burns off as it gets further away from the river. Part of that is the deep valley that keeps out most of the sun. The bottom right photo above is just about noon. I can see why fairy tales so often came from the northern regions. It’s not a little uncanny to walk out of strong sunshine and into blue dimness in the middle of the day. It feels like entering Narnia and the land of perpetual winter, where you walk over an invisble boundary into fairyland. My dad brought me a book of Scandinavian fairy tales when I was little that was one of my favorites for years. I’m feeling its echoes on this trip.

I also went down to the pebble beach at the end of the park, which is one of my favorite places. It’s stunning in winter in a completely different way. It was a gorgeous way to spend a morning, and then I headed back to the land of heating and good, local pizza after being out in the cold for a couple of hours.

This one still has some refinement to go, but I’m feeling largely good about it. It’s probably 85% done at this point. I’m having the best time with oils lately. I’m taking time off this week to demonstrate printmaking the the Pink Palace Crafts Fair, Memphis’s oldest and marvelous outdoor fair. I loved it as a kid, and now I get to be a part of it. Come see me in the demonstration area Friday, Saturday, or Sunday if you’re in Memphis. I’ll be back to painting (and working on a children’s book) again next week.

Paris has a surprisingly hot old time music scene, and I'm lucky enough to know several of the musicians there. Camille had invited me to go see some of her friends play, and I had a ball my next to last night there. Admittedly it was my crowd of folks, but it was also lovely to be out in a cafe (well, "Irish pub") and know five people. In Paris. It's good to feel I'm getting a set of friends there.

The band was great. The main pair happened to be Americans, though John Matthews has lived there for ages, and Ilon Moss did for a good while. They had the serious pipes to belt out a bunch of songs, unmiked, into a crowded bar. I was impressed. The bass player and guitarist (who also rang out some great Cajun songs) were French. It was such a fun evening.

I had a lot of things going the last week in Paris and didn’t get up the last sketches. I do still want to post these paintings from Auvers, though. I went back a second time because I wanted to paint more (and bigger) in the fields and because one special tree called me back, which will surprise no one who’s known me for very long. I took my bigger sketch book the second time (9x12”) and enjoyed being in the country a bit and did several watercolors in that same area where Van Gogh painted the crows over the wheat field.

This tree, arching over a narrow path, is what really drew me back. I did several different versions, and I never got it quite right, but I sure enjoyed trying.

After I’d painted a bit, I walked down to the other end of town to see Dr. Gachet’s house. Mavis and I hadn’t had the time and energy the week before. I’m so glad I did. He was an amateur artist as well as a doctor, and Van Gogh moved to Auvers to be under his care. Dr. Gachet was a friend of a number of artists, and he had two printing presses, one of which (the one Van Gogh actually used) is still in the house, and I was thrilled to see it. I had a lovely conversation with the docent, who is also a printmaker, as it turns out. We talked art about 25 minutes, all in French (she was patient with my mistakes, but I was proud of myself to have such an extended conversation, even with grammatical missteps). Once we got going, she was kind enough to remove the rope blocking the stairway and take me up to the attic art studio. Cézanne had painted there and had made Dr. Gachet move the skylight from the southern side of the house to the northern one, so there would be cool, steady light for painting. It’s a lovely space, and it was special to be there. I always feel humbled standing in the spaces where great artists have painted, and I always enjoy seeing other people’s work spaces.

Agata took my photo up there, and here is also the printing press. Just a gorgeous piece as well as art making magic.

The garden at Dr. Gachet’s is a lovely place. Small but quiet and with view out across tiled rooftops. Van Gogh had painted Gachet’s daughter there, and I found a bench in the shade to sit and enjoy the view, and I couldn’t resist painting as well.

It was a great day. I was exhausted when it was over, from travel plus five watercolors, but I was so delighted that I got back to spend more time there. It’s only an hour and a half from Gare du Nord, so it’s an easy day trip from Paris for anyone who has the extra time.

I had been wanting to get to Auvers for a while, the town where Van Gogh spent his last few months, and my friend Mavis kindly accompanied me (and guided me through the mysteries of the suburban train system). It was a powerful place to be. Vincent and his brother Theo are both buried there (thanks to Theo’s generous wife who decided they should be together), as is the church that Vincent painted which I had seen in the Orsay. We spent most of the day there, wandering and looking and sketching. From the graveyard you can walk out into the fields where Vincent painted his late masterpiece of the crows. It’s a gorgeous spot, and I sketched it in my journal, just for the thrill of being there and also because after so long in the city, it was marvelous to be in actual countryside again.

The church was covered in scaffolding as they retile the roof, but I had to sketch it as well.

I also fell, not surprisingly, for a tree, just near the site of the crows. I sketched it once and then went back the next week (I’ll post these after) to paint it again. Mavis and I also went up to the small room where Vincent lived and then died. It was a bit of a crowded tour, but I got in the room before most of the group did and was able to stand in silence for a minute and also take this photo. It was a moving place to be.