The Heat of Autumn

The Heat of Autumn - oil on cradled wood panel, 6 x 12 x 1.  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

The heat of autumn 
is different from the heat of summer.  
One ripens apples, the other turns them to cider.  
One is a dock you walk out on,  
the other the spine of a thin swimming horse
- JANE HIRSHFIELD

 We are in the last days of the heat of autumn.  Tuning to cider, the spine of a thin swimming horse.  Here in Portland, it is hazy with the smoke of wildfires, dry as a crisp from a long summer without rain.  

In my mind, images from a month of exquisite hiking along the coasts of California and Oregon soften the heat like the fog bands across the highway near the ocean.  My spirit is overwhelmed with abundant experiences- redwoods, cliffs, sea lions, pelicans, whale bones, frigid ocean waters, warm sun on boulders and bare shoulders and the joy of marrying my love in a courthouse one afternoon.  

The Heat of Autumn

In the studio, I am stymied by too much inspiration.  

And so I begin in the way that I know best - showing up, letting paint move and following the trail it leaves.  Rubber wedge and paper towel, fingers, chopstick and brush.  While immersed in the wander of this luscious oil painting, ideas began to take root. A sketch of the next piece appears on the easel.  The mind eases back into where my feet are standing now.  Home.