The fourth 16" square oil painting in this series is halfway finished. The first three have been professionally photographed. Take a look! They are Guanacaste, Life is a Carnival, and Across the Sea of Time. I don't yet have a title for the painting on my easel, but here it is, in process. The island is blocked in, and the pelicans are coming into focus. The unpainted area on the bottom right is the brilliant red tutu - my next step. I'm always blown away by the contrast in scale - just a tiny detail is visible of The Procession of Hope and Feathers, still tacked to the wall. Three of these four square paintings depict the Pacific coastline of Costa Rica, with its hairy, rounded islets and native birds. This islet, commonly called Monkey Island, is becoming quite recognizable. Where will I go from here? Another 16" square? Shall I stay in Costa Rica?

The fourth 16" square painting is on the easel. This one features the girl in the red tutu from The Procession of Hope and Feathers, prehistoric-looking pelicans (one of my favorite birds) and Monkey Island in Guanacaste, CR, oddly shaped like the head of a gorilla or monkey. This is a photograph of the island. A group of pelicans is a "pod", which is a very popular word this year. Another name for them is a "squadron" - maybe because they fly in military precision. I have chosen to demilitarize them, so to speak, and send them on a fishing expedition as they circle the island. One pelican has left the pod to try to engage with the girl in the tutu. The brilliant red tutu will be a striking complementary color against the sky. The pelican shapes against the sky complete the composition.

This new project - a series of 16" square paintings on wood panels - has challenged me to work in a much smaller format. Each of these is clearly its own singular entity, while as a group they tell a more complex story. 2021 may be my year of small paintings. I can visualize a show of them when I complete the cycle. I have completed the first two: Across the Sea of Time and Life is a Carnival. The third is more than half done, but still untitled. It is set off the coast of Guanacaste, Costa Rica, just like Across the Sea of Time. Three magpies circle over the central figure as the sun sets into the sea. The fourth painting is just at the sketch stage. It features Allison, the young woman in the red tutu from The Procession of Hope and Feathers. Monkey Island, in the background, is also from Guanacaste. It's certainly obvious how it got its name. Pelicans are her traveling companions. I've always been quite taken with the look of pelicans - huge prehistoric birds, always flying in strict formation, using their beaks as very efficient fishing nets. I have two more 16" primed, cradled square panels in my studio. I also have two 24" squares, if I want to start working a little bigger. The 138" painting is still tacked to my wall. I can't take it down to be stretched until it's safe to bring it into the frame workshop with other people to help me. So I am making good use of my trusty easel now, and enjoying being able to say DONE! after a much shorter period of time. These will go up on my website once they have been photographed professionally. Meanwhile, you can see their progress here.

At the start of this new year, I find myself reflecting on work that sold long ago to mostly private collectors. I don't expect to see many of those pieces ever again. I've been contemplating offering signed and numbered archival prints of selected pastels and paintings, both past and current. I have posted some of these on Instagram and Facebook. Around 1990, I completed a set of large (50" x 42") pastels on the theme The Elements: Earth, Air, Water and Fire. All sold except Earth, which I retained for my personal collection. They are all self-portraits. I received a commission to create a second version of Water for another collector. My followers on social media were enthusiastic about all of The Elements. But the posted work that received the biggest response was Solstice, a 51" x 63" oil painting on linen. Solstice was the cover image for an issue of The Gettysburg Review, which featured a color portfolio inside of my work - including most of The Elements. As I went through the digital archives of my past work, it was a revelation that so very many pieces are out in the world and out of reach - literally hundreds. But I am looking forward to sharing some of them again by making high-quality prints available. Perhaps this "lost year" of 2020 has been productive in unanticipated ways. Looking forward to new work, lots of changes, and fresh endeavors in 2021. Cheers!

During the winters of 2018 and 2019, when travel was still feasible, I spent a good deal of time in Costa Rica. I stayed in a house on the beautiful northwestern coast, perched above the Pacific Ocean. There were all kinds of monkeys, iguanas, crocodiles... but most of all the sky was filled with birds. They would swoop down in the morning and late afternoon, calling to each other, drinking from the pool and foraging for crumbs. Great kiskadees and brilliantly feathered parrots, flycatchers, starlings, and tiny hummingbirds all greeted us, but the blue ring-necked magpies were our true friends, coming when we called, tilting their crowned heads, eating out of our hands. For my third 16" square painting, I returned to the islands on the Guanacaste coast. These are actually more like outcroppings in the sea, framing the glowing sky. Magpies circle over the water, drifting ever closer to the woman in the foreground. The model is Adriana. She has such a peaceful, Madonna-like presence. The added arm tattoos give her some edginess and echo the etched pattern in the sky of the distant birds. Her dress will be the salmon color of the setting sun in the sky. This is the scene. Don't you wish you could be here now? As you can see in the drawing, I have enhanced the right-hand island with trees. I look forward to sharing my progress on this painting in the New Year. Perhaps we'll even get to travel again in 2021! I wish everyone a safe, healthy, and creative New Year. Cheers!

This is the second in a new series of 16" square paintings on wood panels. I don't often work in a square format, but I do like the composition of these small paintings. I'm about to start #3. The original inspiration for this one was several snapshots I took of a little girl running on a golf course by the sea in Bermuda, back when traveling was still an option. This is the scale. Here is the black & white sketch I started with. Skies are usually my forte, but this one took longer than anything else in the painting. It probably has about five layers of oil paint, glazes and scumbling. "Life is a Carnival" is the working title - but by the time it dries I may settle on a different one. I've been reading Levon Helm's autobiography and his very subjective history of The Band - Life is a Carnival is one of their signature songs. You can walk on the water Drown in the sand You can fly off a mountaintop If anybody can Run away, run away (run away, run away) It's the restless age Look away, look away (look away, look away) You can turn the page

The nude in the foreground is painted mostly from my imagination. I taught figure drawing from models for many years, so anatomy is imprinted in my brain. The wood stork in flight is native to Costa Rica, as are these hairy, hilly islands in the sea. I rarely paint in a square format. This is a 16" square cradled panel. I have another square panel, the same size. I have already begun sketches for that one. After the mural-size painting that I just completed last month, I needed a breather. A pause. I'm looking forward to a series of easel-size projects, each small enough to finish in a few weeks time. Where will they lead me? Quite possibly to an idea for another big one. When I'm ready. I titled this painting "Across the Sea of Time". A view of part of my studio painting wall, which is about 14 feet wide. The panorama camera view makes it look curved, but it is a straight wall.

The Procession of Hope and Feathers is still tacked to the wall, but the painting is to all extents and purposes done. The photographer came to my studio last week (yes, we were masked and the windows were open) and I now have a professional image. Once I have the image, I crop it in Photoshop to confirm the edge boundaries. That's the first step to ordering a stretcher for the painting. I determined that the finished size will be 131" x 68". It will be be a month or two (at least, given these times) until it's on the stretcher and ready to hang, but I look forward to showing The Procession of Hope and Feathers at R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton when the time comes. From the largest painting I've ever completed - to a very small one, still untitled. I have started work on a 16" square oil on wood panel. Easel size! Since The Procession of Hope and Feathers will be taking up my painting wall for a while, I plan to complete a series of small works. This is a snapshot of the progress so far - basically an underpainting. Since I have blocked in a lot of the background, my next step is making the central figure come alive. Painting women has always been my passion and my forte. But I will admit that painting birds has become a bit of an obsession - each one has a particular coloration, feather configuration, grace and personality. This is a stork, like the ones I saw traveling in Costa Rica. When will we be able to travel again?

Much of my art is large in scale and full of color. How will it look in a room? I'll start with my oil painting Sirens. Six feet by seven feet, it calls for a ceiling at least ten feet tall, with some space on either side so it can breathe. I think it would also look great on a darker wall, perhaps a light to medium gray. Wake is a framed pastel on paper, 45" x 51". This warm, rustic living room is a great setting. The texture of the furniture and the wood accents really fit the swirling, gestural strokes of the pastel. Because it's slightly vertical, it brings your eye up to the beams. The deep glowing colors of Golden Days bring a lift to this modernist white room. Hanging over a gas fireplace just accentuates the fiery pigments of this 60" x 42" oil on wood panel. In a traditional room decorated in dark, warm colors the painting would recede more into the background. A city apartment with medium-size rooms and 8 foot ceilings can easily show off a big piece of art. This is Birdwatchers of Chappaquiddick, oil on linen, 76" wide. The secret is its 31" height, which allows lots of space around it. This stunning beach house is a place where I can imagine many of my paintings hanging. Beach and Disco is on the right, Chappaquiddick on the left. The blues and greens of both pieces mirror and reflect the colors of the sea, just off the deck. The deep, soft grays and taupes of this family room call out for art with a good deal of content and color. The Willing Suspension of Disbelief draws your attention with its magic realist imagery, the glowing sunset and the larger-than-life figures. The last one for today is Fever Dream. More than seven feet wide, it commands its space. The elaborately draped and richly colored Bedouin tent, the footsteps in the sand, and the scale of the figures creates the impression that you can walk right inside.

This is the final stretch. With just a few tweaks (mostly bottom right, upper left) this painting will be ready for a professional photo session. Then I will figure out the exact dimensions, order a very large stretcher and get it down off my wall. Right now, the working title is The Procession of Hope and Feathers. As this one winds down, I am preparing a new painting. It's time for an easel-size piece. I have a 16" square primed panel, and this is the preliminary digital sketch. When I was in Costa Rica, I took a photo from a boat of these hairy-looking hilly islands in the sea. On a hike, I saw a group of storks, and was quite taken with their surreal prehistoric heads - especially juxtaposed against their graceful black & white bodies and wings. Both of these images have been hanging around in my head for quite some time, just waiting to be the setting for a new painting. The girl in the foreground is actually a pastiche of different snapshots from my travels - she only really exists in my head. I am looking forward to a project that I can complete in a reasonable period of time!