Artist of the Day: Dream of Water and Sky - Tricia McKellar

Dream of Water and Sky,No. 6527. Tricia McKellar eyeful.etsy.com blog at http://triciamckellar.com/note99 - photograph of Bogue Inlet at the North Carolina outer banks. Original photograph with digital painting.

This photograph reminded me of the I finished reading last night, Monique Truoung's Bitter in the Mouth. The setting is Boiling Springs, North Carolina, and one of the character's, Baby Harpo, is never without his camera, constantly documenting his family and community. The book is brilliant. McKellar's photograph captures what I was feeling while I was reading it.


Artist bio:
I’m Tricia McKellar, an artist & photographer in North Carolina, USA. I carry my camera with me almost everywhere. My dreamy photographs combine original photographs with digital painting. Wanderlust & the Southern landscape inspire many of my works

This Moment: Salem, Oregon - August 9, 2011 9:56 P.M.

I am lying on the bottom bunk of my nephew's bunk bed with my left foot propped on a burnt sienna- colored pillow. A magnet is taped to my ankle and a large ice-filled ziploc bag is wedged against the joint. Earlier at the Mt. Angel monastery I found a hawk feather on the outer edges of the cemetery, bent to claim it, then called to my nephew, waving the feather. This is where I fell and twisted my ankle. I sat level with the stone crosses, the neat rows of graves beneath. I cursed to relieve the pain. I remember two hawks perched on the water tower lifting into the air and floating in slow spirals. I yelled, leave me alone, like a child to everyone calling to me in concern. I wanted to be left alone with the pain. The swelling is going down. The house is filled with muffled conversations and laughter vibrating through the walls. Silence now. I return to the stone grotto with it's white Madonna behind glass, standing on the world, arms at her side, palms open. I wanted to climb to her, clasp her hands and listen to the sound of my own heart. Perhaps I am falling so that I will listen, so that I will kneel. There is a quiet knocking in the house, as if someone is rocking, like a heart beating.

This Moment: 7:32 P.M. July 31, 2011

The sudden cloudburst ended as quickly as it began, a reprieve to the dog days. Sirius has one more month to punish with his cruel heat. My small dog is curled on the bed, whimpering in his sleep. The older, larger dog is on his floor pillow, grooming his foot as diligently and loudly as if she were picking a bone clean. A fly buzzes in the windowsill and Emily and Death enter and share the quiet with me. Curious, how easily visitors enter and leave the mind through the same door. A dove is cooing and I wonder about the wounded dove from the other day, that wandered toward my car as I drove carefully to a stop to avoid crushing it. The bird came to me, unafraid. My daughter placed it in the brush by the side of the road. I wished for it a gentle death. Later that evening a dove sat unmoving on the bottom step of my back stairs. I could not imaging it was the same dove from earlier. It wasn't. After a few moments, the dove flew away. In our lives we are like the dove, moving toward and away from our fears, our fate.

Quote Therapy: Colette

"Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet" Colette

I always thought I was a cat person.

Our family always had a dog when I was growing up, but it was the kittens I toted everywhere. Cleopatra was my favorite cat. I also loved the bum lambs and calves that had to be bottle fed, and I was bereft, absolutely bereft, when Nature took its natural course, and they died. My favorite rescue, Linus, was herded on to the slaughter truck by mistake, instead of in the sheering pen. It was a moment from Wagner's Gotterdamerung -the crazy fury section -when I realized the fate of my pet lamb.

Did I mention I grew up on a farm?

I have a weakness for strays, for underdogs. Sheena of Fanfur, Grand Champion,1986, was a rescue. She was a full bred Persian, which means she looked like she'd ran straight in to a wall and flattened her face, and she always sounded like she was snoring. Her story is a queen to peasant story, due to her contracting the fatal and contagious disease, feline leukemia, thereby endangering the cattery, (who knew there were such things, or that there were show cats?). It was either find a home for her or put her down. I got her through a friend that worked at a local vet. I had to have an interview her owner before I was allowed take her. I passed and she outlived my first marriage, but died suddenly. She had a taste for whiskey, and my daughter was certain it was alcohol that had killed her rather than a relapse. Sheena's original owner was colorful. He made his fortune in wheat, and claimed to have been a drummer for Elvis. I never checked it out, I suppose I could Google it, but I prefer to keep the story as is. unverified.

My daughter and I found Ellie, our blue healer/border collie mix at the pound. I hedged until my four-year-old prostrated herself against the cage, wailing, after the keeper revealed that the dog was literally at death's door. A very hard sell, so we had no choice. We brought Ellie home, but I considered taking her back that first night when she chewed a corner off my dining room hutch. She has dug up more flowers and lawn than I'd like to admit. She ran a track in the lawn around the house. She would accommodate my daughter and her friends and play "horse" and clear five foot posts. That is all in the past now, although she is still doing well despite, one serious encounter with a car,a subsequent hip surgery, and her sixteen years. She still comes with me on my shorter walks.

Of all of our cats: Sheena, Isabella, Rosie, and Queen Victoria, Rouger is the only feline still in residence. I named each of my cats after queens. Isabella after Isabella of Toledo, because her coat reminded me of Spain's queen, Queen Vicoria after England's queen, because the cat was stout. She weighed 39 pounds when I brought her home. My daughter named Rosie and Rouger. As I said Rouger is still among the living. My daughter found her, squalling and near death. When we brought her home, you could compare her heft and weight to that of a small candle. She is now an angular, feral cat. Her desperate first few weeks shaped her behavior, and she stalks her food dish, and will not tolerate the dogs good will. Ellie has begun stealth attacks in retaliation.

I'm certain my penchant for strays and rescues is psychological evidence about the deep nature of my psyche, or that I am a identify on some level, but whatever. I said that we found all of our pets at the animal shelter. That was true until my husband, who up until he brought this tiny puppy home from California, hadn't shown much evidence of being an animal lover. Harley was four pounds when he arrived, and he's up to fifteen as of yesterday's vet visit for an embedded barley beard in his front paw. He's lost two pounds walking this summer. Ellie has lost six.

Harley was so small I carried him around in the pocket of my sweatshirt. For the first month we had him, I held him until he protested. He's terribly behaved, and a great contrast to Ellie in temperament.

I'm firmly a dog person now. I still love cats, but it's different relationship. I really never got it when dog people would go on and on about their canines. Now I get it. Dogs love you. They really love you. And they put up will all the petting and scratching and teasing. No matter what, every time you walk through the door,regardless of how many times a day, your dog is happy to see you.

It's a three dog life. And to this point I've had my three. One in childhood. Two in adulthood.

Artist of the Day:Owl Person Holding the Opening for Creation in Her Wings - Blue Fire MacMahon

Owl Person Holding the Opening for Creation in her Wings Blue Fire MacMahon bluefirestudio.blogspot.com

Owls fascinate. For years, every evening a snowy owl flew over my house on its way to my Honey Locust tree. One pass it dropped a small coffin-like bundle of bones and twigs. Last year a large owl took residence in the same tree the evening before a very important meeting. My daughter and I walked right under the tree and it didn't fly off, just looked at us with great intensity.

Ancients believed that birds were the messengers of the gods. I do as well. Any time I am about to have a huge shift in my personal, emotional, spiritual life, my intellectual life, my career, my anything, a bird will present itself in a dramatic way. This summer was a hummingbird literally helicoptering around my head. Since that encounter, I've noticed two hummingbirds on my morning walks. Hummingbirds are territorial, so it's no surprise that these two are in the same place, defending their branch.

Years ago when I was really trying to decide if I should divorce my first husband, I was standing in the bathroom looking at myself in the mirror, really working on giving myself a wrinkle between my eyes, when I heard a bird squawking. I thought it was the robins having yet another fight, but to my surprise, it was a bird that flew clockwise from side railing to screen door to front railing, screeching the entire time. My approach through the living room didn't stop its behavior, even when I was standing at the screen door with my hand in the place where it would grasp the screen and then fly off for the railings. I remember it seemed like this ritual went on for minutes. Afterwards, I tried to remember what I'd been thinking about: divorce. A few weeks later I opened the front door and a bird flew in and then proceeded to crash into the windows until it landed, exhausted, on the ceiling fan. I finally shooed it out. Birds flew in the house two more times. Sometimes it takes a lot for me to get the message. I got it.

Monday an eagle drifted lazily overhead. I didn't take this as any kind of real sign, but noted the siting in my journal.

I found this great owl sculpture on etsy, I mean, where else? I love it,(the sculpture and etsy). Can't you see owl right there in the beginning with the whole of creation in her wings? The chalky texture of the paint reminds me of oxides or using natural elements on the surface, (and of the time I pit-fired pots and burned horsehair and sawdust images as they emerged from the pit, but that's another story).

Be sure to check out Blue Fire's blog for more sculptures. What a cool name. I think I'd rename myself Scarlet Ibis or Celedon Water...just doesn't work, does it?

Artist Bio:
I am Blue Fire.

....I've been doing artwork in various mediums throughout this lifetime....I've been working with clay and selling my creations for 20 years.
.....i create sacred clay art... standing at the doorway, the Mystery, bringing my passion into being through my heart, hands and clay. i work with my dreams and mother earth's sacred body, from which she creates and nurtures all of life... i bring into being that which comes.... blessed by sacred fire the art / creation begins its ceremony / life.
read more about what goes on in my world at my blog: bluefirestudio.blogspot.com

Artist Statement:
I feel like when i go into my studio and start to work i am just holding an opening for creation. I just assist something that is happening all the time anyway, it is the natural order of this world. Such a joy to open to creation and participate in that way.

9-1/2" wide, 4-1/2" tall

Hand made from red clay and fired ceramic colors of the rainbow.
In the close up photos, you can see the way these ceramic glazes look like chalk or pastels. I work with colors the way a painter does...that's because i started out as a painter!!! and then i discovered the magic of clay. But still love working with the infinite possibilities of colors!!!! so my artworks are a combination of those two very different mediums.

Most of my sculpture is for display INDOORS ONLY. Inquire about custom art work for outdoors.

Artist of the Day: The Getaway - Linda Monfort

The Getaway - Linda Monfort lindamonfort.etsy.com

I like the aggressivenes of this painting. Perfect for a hot, hot July afternoon. Check out her work on her etsy site.

Artist Bio:With a B.A. degree in art from San Diego State University, I worked as a graphic designer and art director.

I later focused my energy into creating copper enamels, etched glass and designing and hand-painting texturized furniture using hand-made stencils. I then had a ten year career designing high end room size custom area rugs working with interior designers.

My style of painting has evolved through many years of exploration. My copper enamels, both hard edge and ethereal, translated in later years into a spontaneous painting style using acrylic paint and my stencil technique. This sometimes gives the appearance of air brushing. Bold colors and swift, blunt strokes predominate. These are sometimes complemented by India ink, charcoal and delicate areas of colored pencil and/or soft pastel. Today I paint original contemporary abstract expressionist paintings, original contemporary abstract and impressionist landscape and floral paintings and original contemporary figurative paintings in acrylics on stretched canvas.

Some of my pieces have an oriental influence due to a period of time spent living in Japan during my impressionable childhood years.

I have created and sold over 1800 original paintings over the last 10 years online and through galleries and commissions.

My award winning art has been viewed in many juried exhibitions, galleries, and in private/corporate collections internationally.

Pearl Harbor - Oahu, Hawaii: Photo Essay

USS Arizona and Ford Island.

USS Arizona Memorial.

1,102 names, the honored dead, inscribed in marble.

USS Arizona gun turret mount.

Oil still seeping up from the USS Arizona, commonly known as the, "tears of the Arizona".

Entry map at the Pearl Harbor Memorial - countries or posts where my father was stationed or served.




Ford Island. My father's barracks were about a block from the white submarine tower (almost covered by trees in photo), and one-hundred feet from Battleship Row.


Young woman taking bridal photos - a hopeful conclusion to the visit to the memorial.