Pause and Ponder 12×12 oil available at Art Center Waco
Although a Solar Eclipse is often a “once in a lifetime” experience, it is a phenomenon known in all continents around the world. For centuries, people have pondered and wondered at the heavenly spectacle.
When the Art Center Waco announced their exhibit, Eclipse: Shining Shadows, to coincide with the 2024 Eclipse over Waco, I immediately thought of a photo from years ago! My son, Mark Stokes, had photographed a powerful image of a child viewing the 2001 eclipse in Mozambique. I remembered the impact of light and shadow in the photograph and the inquisitive expression on the child’s face. I asked the photographer for permission to use it as a photo reference for a painting. (How could he turn down his mother?)
The message of this painting is a celebration of humanity’s sense of wonder, and gratitude for the gift of sight. We, who behold, bond with emotions of awe and reverence as we pause and gaze into the unknown. We remember the day that we saw the eclipse and paused to ponder the unfamiliar sight. (Sure, there are clear scientific explanations we can give.) I choose to see through the eyes of a child and be amazed!
Morning Light 24×30 oil on gallery wrapped canvas $700
Painted during the late summer when the hay grass had turned a Naples Yellow, this landscape is currently on my guest room wall. I walked in there today, noticed it, and said to myself, “I had forgotten about that one!”
I don’t know how I forgot about it, except that it was painted at a time when I was in between shows. It wasn’t dry enough for “From the Ground Up.” And then, life got busy, so I just put it out for sale on my website today!
I love the finished painting as much as I loved the morning light when it hit that yellow hayfield one summer morning. It was one of those mornings that grabbed my attention and said, “Paint me!” I probably had a coffee cup in my hand, walked out on the porch to breathe, before the Texas heat took over by 10:00 a.m., and used my cell phone to record the scene, for reference in a painting.
The painting, Morning Light, is in my guest room, for now. But, if it gets your attention and you are interested, be my guest! The paintings on my walls are often changed. (And I wonder if my husband notices.)
“From the Ground Up” – implies beginning on ground level,
where the only direction to go is up.
If you have been following my paintings, you will remember I have been painting big Texas skies for a few years. I decided to switch perspective and paint “from the ground up.”
One reason for the theme, From the Ground Up, is an effort to tie Carvings and Canvases together for the next big show. Sculptor Kevin Rackley and I did not know each other before it was suggested that our works might pair together in a duo show. What did we have in common? Artworks, inspired by this beautiful earth on which we live, and a mutual appreciation for the Creator and all that is created “From the Ground Up!”
I’m sure we all have had times when we began a new venture and literally did it “from the ground up.” It can be daunting, and also exciting!
Almost five years ago, my husband and I sold or gave away many of our possessions and loaded a Penske truck to move from Georgia to Texas, in order to be with our Texan son’s family. We bought/built/renovated a home, learned to landscape in the Blackland Prairie, traded our little Prius for an SUV that could handle dirt roads better, made new friends in a new environment, managed to maneuver the road constructions of Waco, constructed an art studio and workshop, and became acquainted with this place we now call “home.” All, from the ground up!
I wondered what this move would mean as I was just getting a good start in Georgia with a second act career of being a full-time artist, after retiring from teaching. I wanted to keep painting, but would need to start afresh with clients and prove my abilities “from the ground up.”
The collection of work in this upcoming show represents the first five years of my painting in Texas. As a plein air painter, I have enjoyed exploring new places and becoming familiar with the western landscape through artist observation. This time, the perspective shifts to the ground and the plants growing from it. Several of these landscapes were painted from my porch (near Mart, TX). Some paintings depict the western environments, seen through recent travels through New Mexico and Arizona. The presence of cows in my paintings are influenced by animals I have made peace with on our property. And the beautiful Texas Skies continue to lift my eyes upward to more heavenly realms.
The show is for you to see and enjoy. But it is also for me, to put a marker on the last five years of painting: my experiences, my communication, my therapy, my artworks.
Don’t you love roadrunners? Because I watched Bugs Bunny in childhood, I am conditioned to laugh when I see one run past me! (beep beep)
But after being in the Saguaro Desert and watching roadrunners saunter by without quite as much enthusiasm, I realize living in the desert is not all fun and games.
This thinking has been magnified as we have had a HOT summer in Central Texas. Those days of over 100 temps have been too many to count. The ground cracks and water becomes precious.
Cracks in the earth are all over our property in early September, after months of no rain.
My mind goes to all the ways we symbolically have “cracks in our earth,” times of what we think is unbearable suffering, times of anguish and spiritual drought. Roadrunners know how to thrive and endure, how to find the food and water they need, how to keep running… do we?
Spiritual drought creeps in slowly. Our minds become overwhelmed with too many problems and we forget where to go to sort it all out. Our lives crack, unless we keep adding the Living Water, keep searching Scriptures, and allowing His Spirit to renew us so that we can continue to thrive, in all circumstances.
Steve and I have been married 45 years! (yikes, I know) And we try to go somewhere special at least every five years. Now that we live on the West side of the Mississippi River, I requested a trip to Sedona, Arizona. Steve was on board so we took a road trip through Arizona and New Mexico in early June.
One of his requests was to go on a jeep ride with Safari Jeep Tours. We chose the one at sunrise to see animals waking up to a new day. Both of us are happy with cameras in our hands!
We barely slept, in order to be there at 4:45 a.m. (yes, you read that right). As it turned out, we were the only ones for the tour and had our guide, Cowboy Bob, all to ourselves. He was a jewel, a rough diamond in a cowboy hat. Bob had lived in the Arizona Mountains all his life and was a wealth of knowledge about plants, animals, the early inhabitants, and local folklore.
As the sun rose over the red rock mountains and brushed the tops with golden sunlight, the scenes were magnificent! We bounced along on the rugged terrain in the crisp morning air, holding onto the open jeep with one hand, and clicking cameras with the other.
Back home, weeks later, with all the photos sorted and stored on my computer, I went to my studio and chose the largest canvas I had (a 30×40). I didn’t really get the perfect photo to use as a reference for a sunrise painting. But this one evolved from several photo references and the memories and emotions of color in our experience.
And that’s the Story Behind this Painting.
This one will be available in From the Ground Up! September 23-November 4, 2023 at the Cultural Activities Center, Temple TX.
How I sign my name on a painting and why I sign it this way…
Signatures in the bottom corners of paintings
My handwriting has certainly changed over the years. From the curly cued letters of childhood, through the teen phase of dotting my i with a heart, and into the mixture of capitals and cursives that quickly come from my hand today, the style has changed much.
One reason my signature has changed is that I am often signing with a paintbrush! (Go ahead, try it! It takes some practice.) For that reason, most of my early paintings are signed with a black Sharpie pen. Future generations will look at the paintings and say, “Ah, it’s from her ‘Sharpie Period’ – when she didn’t know how to sign her name with a paintbrush.”
Now, there are two variations of the signature that you might see. If my first and last name is signed, it is a large painting, most likely done in a studio. But when I am painting outside, en plein air, I am in a hurry. The 11×14 canvas or smaller lends itself to a quick “MStokes,” scratched into paint with the tip of a palette knife… if the paint is heavy enough there. When my mother named me, she was thinking more about the melodic sound of the three syllables and the sweetness of Olivia de Havilland’s character in Gone With the Wind, than how long it would take me to write it with a paintbrush!
And here is the inside story of the Story Behind the Paintings — Looking at the signatures, you might notice that the cross piece of the t in Stokes is rather accentuated. I do this purposefully. Crossing the t is the last thing I do in my signature. And when I cross the t, I try to place it higher and wider than the other letters. As I cross the t, I remind myself that I am painting for the God who loves me enough to submit to death on a cross. I am reminded that I am painting through His grace. I am reminded that I belong to Jesus. And that my name needs to reflect His name.
This view: this huge expanse of a sky, with only a few distant wind turbines breaking the horizon, is what I see each morning when I walk out on my front porch. The colors, the shapes, the atmosphere, the smells or sounds may vary from day to day. But one thing I know for sure is that the view is going to be there. It will be new to me, every morning.
And it reminds me of an Old Testament Bible verse,
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23
Written at a time when God’s people had truly messed up, the prophet Jeremiah was lamenting all that was wrong. Yet, he doesn’t give up hope in the steadfast love of God and His faithfulness. He believed that God would not turn his back, would not grow weary of their shortcomings, would not hold back His love from them. New beginnings are welcomed by the God who provides a way for us to give up and start over. His mercies are new every morning!
And when I walk to the door, with my morning coffee, the sunrise reminds me that it is a new day, a new beginning, a new grace, an opportunity to be better than the day before, with God’s strength and through His love.
Is The Grass Really Greener on the Other Side of the Fence? 16×20 oil
Usually, when I walk along the fence line of our property, the neighbor’s cows will turn their backs and move away from me. At first, one or two will leave, and then, the others will notice and begin a trot to move the entire group to safety in herd fashion.
On this day, they stayed, crowded together, and stared at the lady with the phone camera pointed toward them.
I liked the composition of their heads bunched together, the large interesting shape that they created standing in one dark mass, the “expressions” on their faces as they peered across the fence.
I imagined they were thinking (if cows think), “Is the grass really greener on the other side of the fence?” Is it?
Is that what we look like as we peer into the lives of others on social media? As we turn our backs to reality on our side of the fence? As we imagine “what ifs” and “wish I hads” until it becomes discontentment? Maybe so.
I snapped a few photos from which to paint, but it wasn’t long until the cows scattered and moved away. They bowed their heads toward the grass they already had and munched contently on the plenty.
The Mama Cows gathered at the corral gate, wondering why the calves were being herded into the trailer, not knowing that the young ones were about to be taken away.
Separation Day, 16×20 oil
This was the scene I captured with my camera on the day that the year old calves were taken to another place. (We won’t speculate as to whether they were going to another grazing area or to market. The cows on our property belong to someone else, who leases the pasture from us.) We get attached to the cows, watch them from birth, give them names, feed them by hand (well, my husband does that.) And we are glad to have them on our acreage.
Being the novice rancher that I am, I did not expect what came next… As the truck and trailer rattled away with five calves, the cows began to bellow! And they bellowed and bellowed for about two days. They knew those babies were missing. They thought if they kept calling, they would come back. They knew they were supposed to be checking on them and keeping them safe.
As the wails went on, my “mama heart” hurt for their pain. Can cows have emotional pain? They wanted to care for their young, but the new distance was making that impossible. I thought about the times I’ve had physical and emotional distance from my own children. I thought about women who lose children through custody battles, illnesses, adoptions, and miscarriages. I thought about mothers and children and the heartaches that come with the joys. And then, I remembered… for goodness sake, we are talking about cows, here!
The stark contrast of the darks and lights drew me into the scene. The barricade of the gate seemed so final against their faces. The cows’ attention toward those leaving was a shared experience for the ones left behind. Their wails of mourning subsided after a few days. And, once again, the remaining cows became content to stroll from back to front pasture, searching for the perfect blade of grass.
As I painted, I thought about the Spirit of God hovering over the earth, somewhat like this sun setting on a cool evening, and coming close to our hearts as we pray to him. The word, “vespers” came to mind, “associated with evening prayer.”
My Freshman Year at Shorter College (many moons ago), I often went to a Vespers service after eating supper in the dining hall with friends. I don’t remember hearing the word, “vespers” in my Baptist upbringing before then, but I soon found out it was an evening devotional service that had good sing-alongs with guitars. It was a ritual that delayed going back to the dorm room to study, and an opportunity to socialize with friends, so I was usually in. (And besides, there were usually a few cute guys who tagged along with us which always made it more interesting.)
Even though my main motivation for attending the service on this Baptist campus might not have been to commune with God, His Spirit usually made himself known. God seemed close to me in the outdoor settings, through the songs or devotional thoughts.
And for a brief moment at the setting of the sun, I still bow in gratitude for another day.
“From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised.” Psalm 113:3
