On Island, where I wish I were right now!

Eric Hudson  "Maud Knowlton and Alice Swett Sketching"  1905 Monhegan Museum

Just blogged about this charming painting today on my blog, Women in the Act of Painting. Doing the research brought back so many memories of my times on Monhegan Island (....sigh...pout...yearn!)  You can read the post here if you care to learn more about the three artists concerned: Eric Hudson, Maud Knowlton and Alice Swett.

BTW, I could find almost no information on Swett, so if anyone reading this does have more background, please contact me? Thanks so much! Nancy Bea

Monhegan Still Life!

Monhegan Island Still Life, o/c, 12 x 16, 2012

I started this piece while on Monhegan Island in September of 2010. It was a good autumn for apples and I had no trouble gathering a handful from the sides of the road to use in my still life. Also featured are Lisa Brackett's amazingly delicious doughnuts! For various reasons I was unable to complete the piece while on island, so I carefully wrapped the doughnuts up in wax paper and tucked them into a small metal lunchbox I had providentially won at a Bingo event at the Island Schoolhouse the same week. The doughnuts traveled well and arrived back home with me in good shape. I reset the stage in my studio here (fortunately my neighbor has a scrub apple tree so I have been able to replace the wild fruit!) It took a while but I finally managed to finsih the piece last month.

It is now being show in a still life exhibition at Artists' House Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. The gallery director there, Lorraine Riesenbach, has been wonderful about including me in several group shows despite the fact that I am essentially on leave of absence from most of my other work obligations due to being in graduate school. Although participating in the shows is a bit of a strain, one more flying ball in my very large juggling act, it's probably a very good thing not to lose the showing momentum. Participating in showing work keeps you grounded in reality...and reality sometimes feels a very long way away from graduate school..land of theory! ;-) So I am grateful to her for her persistence and patience with me.

Beyond the Ordinary Still Life

February 29 through April 1, 2012
Artists' House
57 North Second Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 923-8440
Wed - Sun 12-5 PM or by appointment

Reception:
Sunday,
March 4,
1 - 4pm

artists' house gallery website:
http://artistshouse.com/

Vicarious Maine Painting

I started grad school the last week of August so very reluctantly had to forgo my part in the annual autumn painting pilgrimage to Maine. I am currently engaged on a project called "Women in the Act of Painting" and perhaps to compensate for missing the Maine trip, I found that I am stepping up my inclusion of images of women painting IN MAINE! Here are a few from recent days:

"Two Girls Painting in the Woods", Robert Henri (1865 – 1929)

"Self-Portrait", Alison Hill (contemporary)

"Paintings and Cocktails", Alexandra Tyng (contemporary, of course! ;-)

"Painters on the Beach", Don Stone (contemporary)

"Sketchers in the Woods", Robert Henri (1865 – 1929)

Catalogs Available

The Aladdin Lamp, oil on linen, 20" x 30"

The Dowling Walsh Gallery is offering a 22-page color catalog of my show Right Here: New Maine Paintings for the very reasonable price of $5. You can pick one up at the gallery, or contact Jake Dowling at 207-596-0084 or at info@dowlingwalsh.com if you would like one sent to you via mail.

The catalog includes 20 color reproductions and an essay by Carl Little, author of Edward Hopper's New England and other books. His article on Fairfield Porter and James Schuyler appears in the 2011 Island Journal.

Alice Kent Stoddard at the Monhegan Museum

View from the lighthouse tower.

Looking back over the last few months' posts, I realized I hadn't blogged about my annual trip to Monhegan with the Maine Landscape Guild. Every year for the past four years, my artist buddies and I have carved out time for a week-long stay on this very special island nine miles off the coast of Maine. Last fall, our stay coincided with "Lighthouse Day," a fundraising event for the recently restored Monhegan Lighthouse. We got a tour of the buildings and we were able to climb up the iron staircase to the top of the lighthouse tower--very exciting for me because not only do I love lighthouses and towers, but also I love to paint views looking down on the landscape from an elevated viewpoint. Needless to say, I took a lot of photos from the tower looking out over the village and neighboring island of Manana.

After the tour, I was walking through the Keeper's house, also known as the Monhegan Maritime Museum, and I noticed a wonderful portrait by Alice Kent Stoddard. I had seen some of Stoddard's work in Philadelphia, in the Drexel Collection, and this portrait of a former lighthouse keeper was among the best I had ever seen of her work! I asked the curator about it, and she said, "Oh, there are some even better ones in the vaults! Would you like to see them?" Of course I said yes. She took me to the "vault," which on the outside looks like just another white clapboard building in the lighthouse complex. But inside was rack after rack of incredible paintings, including a staggering collection of paintings by Alice Kent Stoddard! I thought she painted men especially well-and here are three of my favorites:

Portrait of the man who built the Island Inn, by Alice Kent Stoddard
Portrait of landscape artist Andrew Winter by Stoddard
Another Stoddard portrait

I highly recommend the Monhegan Museum to anyone interested in seeing a star-studded collection of work by well-known artists who painted in Maine. Both the keeper's house and assistant keeper's house have been made into exhibition spaces. And if you happen to get there on Lighthouse Day, you'll get to climb the tower and get a 360 degree view of this artists' island.

Alexandra Tyng's Upcoming Show at Dowling Walsh Gallery

I know it's a while until summer, but I wanted to let anyone who reads this blog know that I'll be having a one-person show at the Dowling Walsh Gallery in August (opening August 5th). The title of the show is still a work in progress. At some point close to the opening date, I'll be giving a gallery talk on my work. I'll be posting more specific information in the next couple of months.

The paintings will range from large aerial panoramas to figures in settings. I am focusing on three geographic areas: the Camden/Rockport area, Monhegan, and Mt Desert Island. Stay tuned!

Farewell 2009 and Hello 2010!

Vacation's end-
island of a thousand dreams
dissolving in light

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This was my last shot of Monhegan Island when I left in September. Yesterday, several fellow MLG-ers sat round my kitchen table and we planned next year's visit. The joy of it, on a cold, hard day. I wrote the haiku for Haiku Bones: the prompt this week is regret. Also:

Wistful

dreams and memories
litter that cold rocky shore-
blunt-edge beach glass shards

*********************************************************

I wrote this for the Haiku Bones prompt of wistful. Also:

MLG Holiday shows!

The MLG ride again
Above is a somewhat blurry photo of four of the MLG at receptions for two of their December exhibits. Left to right: Eliza Auth, Alexandra Tyng, Mary Walsh and Nancy Bea Miller.



Here is Eliza at Rosenfeld gallery where she is participating in the annual "Smaller Works in Various Media by Gallery Artists" show. The title is a bit of a mouthful, but it is a very good show! Click here for more information.



Here I am (Nancy Bea) at Artists' House Gallery's "Small Works 2009" exhibit. I guess I still hold the dubious honor of being "...one of Philadelphia's foremost doughnut painters" as a critic once titled me. Maine aficionados, please also note the two small pieces I painted en plein air while on Monhegan Island a few months ago! Click here for more info.

Happy Holidays!

painting and model

Painting and Model
meet up at my recent Episcopal Academy show! Eliza stands in front of the painting she posed for on the cliffs on Monhegan Island. Recognize that inimitable Eliza hair? Well, maybe it is imitable...when this painting was first exhibited an acquaintance sought me out to ask if the figure was Eliza Auth? The face is turned away, it is a seated figure wearing baggy clothing...it is amazing how little information our eyes need to make recognition.

To the right is another painting of Monhegan, done from the porch of the Monhegan House hotel one afternoon.

New Monhegan Painting

Though I think about Maine all year, I notice a heightening of excitement in my thoughts as spring moves toward summer. I find myself reliving the outdoor painting experiences of last summer and planning new compositions. Here's one I just recently finished of my MLG friends Diana and Mary painting the orangey glow on the island of Manana from the rocks on Monhegan's western shore in the early morning.

It was composed from a photo I took, and the color information and the feeling of "being there" was inspired by a small oil sketch I had done on two successive mornings at the spot. In my larger painting, I made a direct reference to my process: the third (higher) easel in the painting is mine, with the sketch on it. At the top I've posted my oil sketch so you can see the relationship.

Can't wait for the summer and Maine!

Toast to Lobsters

This summer (2009) I'll be participating in a themed group show at the gWatson Gallery entitled "Consider the Lobster." Anything goes as long as the work relates to lobsters. Since the artists at gWatson are a varied and accomplished bunch, the results should be interesting! The show will be up in July, but I will have more specific information as the summer draws near.

Here's my entry, Toast to Lobsters, oil on linen, 22" x 30."

The gWatson Gallery is located on 68 Main Street, Stonington, Maine. Stonington is a small town at the very tip of Deer Isle, Home to many artists and art galleries.

Currently on Exhibit

Four Seasons
Eliza and I are both in this group show
Jan 7-31, 2009
Sherry French Gallery
601 West 26th street
New York City, NY 10001

For more info on the show click here.

This is another of my plein air pieces from September's stay on Monhegan Island. While there we got lashed with the tail end of Hurricane Hannah. After one gray stormy day the weather started clearing towards sundown. There was an eerie, exhausted calm: dark sky, rosy sunset and the water of the harbor looked like glass. I painted as quickly as I could before the light went.

Monhegan Harbor study, oil on canvas laid to board, 8 x 10 inches, 2009

Murder on Monhegan

Just been reading a murder mystery set on Monhegan Island! Came across it by chance. It's not bad, certainly not great literature or anything. And somehow I don't get a real sense of the island, but many of the familiar landmarks do get mentioned. And for somebody hungry for Monhegan, that's a plus.

An interesting detail: digital cameras must have been new when this book came out and there are several fun and fascinating references to people trying to get their heads around this new technology! On the other hand, one of the main protagonists is an artist but the author does not seem very conversant with the visual arts. At one point she mentions the whole Wyeth-Helga thing and manages to get Helga's hair color wrong as well as misunderstand the whole nature of that exercise. But I digress...

Just thought it was worth a mention and a read for the Monhegan-starved! Murder with Puffins by Donna Andrews.

Hi to all who are interested! I'm a beginner to the blog system so I'm experimenting by posting a couple of my favorite pix from our incredible Monhegan painting vacation!-- More images to come

Group Shot of the Guild

The Maine Landscape Guild
Taken last week on Monhegan Island! We are standing on Fish Beach and the small island of Manana is behind us across the harbor. From left to right you see Carla Tudor, Nancy Bea Miller, Mary Walsh, Alexandra Tyng, Eliza Auth and Diana Ansley.

What a week it was!

Monhegan Trip 2008

Thanks to all the MLGuilders for a wicked good week!  Hope you enjoy these bits of our week together.

Mary and Eliza enjoying popovers on a rainy day-

Manana from our window-

Carla drawing with the birds-

Eliza bewitched by the view out our door.

Alex inspiring us with her songs-

We took pictures from all angles-

And from every window-

No wonder with the stunning sunsets-

What better way to end the summer! 

MAINLY MAINE SHOW

Both Eliza and I (Nancy Bea) were invited to participate in this exhibit.
Mainly Maine
September 3rd thru 27th, 2008
Sherry French Gallery
601 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001-1101
212-647-8867
http://www.sherryfrenchgallery.com

Click here for more info on this group show. I have two pieces in it, both set on Monhegan Island, Maine. Unfortunately neither Eliza or I will be at the reception for the show as right then we will actually be on Monhegan, painting, with the rest of the Maine Landscape Guild. Can't wait!

Dead Tree, Burnt Head, oil on canvas laid to board, 8 x 10 inches

Semper ubi sub ubi...

LONG JOHN ALERT!
Remember how cold we were at times on Monhegan? It got very chilly at night, despite the gorgeously sunny days. Just wanted to mention that this is a good time of year to buy thermal underwear...when the temperature starts rising the prices start dropping. I'm stocking up now for September! :-)

...And a Rear View!

Now that N.B. has posted her charming characterization of the artist on Horn Hill, I thought I'd post another view of her that I incorporated into a painting. I don't know what it is about her--whether it's her Western style hat or her red shoes or her stance--but she was an appealing subject. I also borrowed a photo from N.B. and painted myself into the view, though I consider myself to be ordinary in comparison.

I'm calling this Painting and Cocktails because everywhere you look on Monhegan there are artists standing in front of easels and people sitting and admiring the view while sipping cool drinks.