Tag: #RachelBarlowArt

Demand and Supplies

1”x2” oil on bored

I have a well-known diet Coke addiction that serves no other purpose, except to introduce as much caffeine to my system on a hot day as possible. I have another addiction – art supplies- that’s possibly almost expensive as the diet soda, but, unlike any other habit, this one with a higher purpose – the belief that I can make something out of that.

The ability to see an object for its possibilities and not just its current state may be the driver of every single art supply purchase in the world, but it is also a serendipitous gift of insight that cannot be denied. At least, that’s what I told my husband when I came home with a nondescript, open paper bag full of paints, canvases, and brushes last night.

So what excuse do you give your significant other?

Talking to Trees

Talking to Trees, Oil on Canvas, 24″x24″
Click here if you would like this painting to live on your wall.

The last few lazy days of summer, and right now, it’s the light and the lines of the trees that compel. There are some red hair in there, but mostly the mountains are a jumble of green and gold.

Hill Climb

Please contact me if you would like this painting to live on your wall.

This past weekend Manchester/Sunderland, hosted the annual hill climb — a bottom to top tour of the Equinox mountain in Manchester, Vermont. The hitch is that all of the cars doing the climbing are classics, and none of them are equipped with the all wheel drive that is emblematic of most vehicles in our brave little state.

I passed by the classic car convention a few times this weekend, every once in a while, wishing we could take an hour or two to drive to the top (Thing1 climbed it by himself on foot on his 17th birthday). It was a perfect day to be at the top of a 5000+ foot mountain. Puffy, clouds, and the sky is a deep saturated blue these days.

Big Dreams

The school year is coming to a close, and with it, the end of a period of intense creativity for me. Every day of every week has been filled with creating new PowerPoint‘s or NearPods and with silly real world math problems or virtual, literary field trips around the world.

Part of me can’t wait take a breath and only be focusing on a graduate research project I’ve been working on. The other part of me has been on the verge of (happy) tears all week. Part of it is saying goodbye to students who are moving on to bigger and better things and two teachers I won’t see next year, but the other part sort of came to me in a dream.

In the dream I was making another projectable book for kids his face as I couldn’t see it. The book morphed into a painting. Someone behind me someone was making it clear that I had to paint something or they’d pull the plug on the life support machine that was suddenly there.

I’ve been following along in a Facebook group for a free abstract painting workshop for the last week now, promising myself I’ll get caught up once everything settles down. I wanted to learn how to paint looser, But now, just things are settling down, I find things to do in the garden or around the house, and the painting doesn’t happen. Not even last night when the house was clean and my studio was no longer a digital classic and, for all intensive purposes ready for painting.

When the cat pounced on my bed this morning, jolting me out of my dream, I knew exactly what the dream was demanding. Sure have breakfast, finish your homework later, but the garden and the housework will wait. The only activity today is to make art like your life depends on it.

Equinox Autumn


Equinox Autumn, 4”x6”, Oil on Board, $45

The day before we left for the hospital, I took down my show at the Oldcastle Theater. I try not to count my chickens before they’re hatched at art shows, but I will admit I was surprised that only one item had sold (I am definitely getting too big for my britches).

they’re 100 different ways to rationalize the results-for the good or the bad-but I’m still looking at it as an overall positive experience. The person curating the show was very nice to meet, and a few people who hadn’t seen my work saw it and sent encouraging feedback.

This is me blowing sunshine. It’s finding the good where I can. And the good is that the paintings will make people at home happy for a little while longer until they go to new homes.

Prints can be purchased on Etsy here.

Sunshine on Etsy

Under the heading of “she’s kind of funny girl”, I decided to blow sunshine up on Etsy.

And there is a funny thing about my new mantra. Each time I feel frustrated or down, it gets easier and easier to start blowing sunshine into my life. It appears to be pretty good source of renewable energy so far. I liked that the place that prints these T-shirts offers a few colors. i’m thinking of ordering the blue one first and using as armor when I do tech-support.

The Itty-Bitty (crowded) Bookshelf Gallery

The dry and ready to post on Etsy paintings are now sharing space on the bookshelf gallery with the new not quite dry and too dangerous to post paintings.

There’s an open house and an exhibition in Bennington coming up, so the smallest gallery in America could get pretty packed for a few weeks. So far, however, the oils have been pretty accommodating about finding new homes in good order.

Picking My Toons

this is the time of year when I start doing quite a few more art fairs. I’m not doing many this year because I’ve started working my day job on weekends, but the Etsy store has become my online art fair.

When my favorite things to make and sell at the fair are magnets of my cartoons from the last few years. The Big Guy built me a spinning display out of black stove pipe (the kind that, along with the wood cook stove dominates our kitchen), And come out when it’s covered with magnets, it’s the centerpiece of my craft fair booth.

To be sure, people like buying notecards. They’re the ultimate impulse item. their validation of artwork. But nothing beats sitting behind the table, momentarily camouflaged by the spinner as I listen to people giggle at my magnets. They’ll never cure cancer, but being able to give people a little giggle on a Saturday afternoon is pretty good.

I’m putting the magnets up on Etsy soon, and it won’t be quite the same. I’m hoping, though, that this part of the online art fair will spread a little silliness around.