Tuesday 207: New At Every Moment

New At Every Moment / 4" x 4" / 2018
Sale Price:$207.00 Original Price:$300.00
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But of all the water's secrets, he saw today only a single one -- one that struck his soul. He saw that this water flowed and flowed, it was constantly flowing, and yet it was always there; it was always eternally the same and yet new at every moment! Oh, to be able to grasp this, to understand this!

- Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

 

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207 Paintings post everyish Tuesday around 5:30am EST on both The Maine  and jessicaleeives.com. Save thirty percent on any 4x4 inch oil on panel painting by making your purchase within the first week of its posting. Instead of $300 pay just $207, a number which just happens to be the Maine state area code.

Tuesday 207 Paintings are exclusive to The Maine. They depict the land, the light and the people that make this state a state of wonder. Jessica is editor of The Maine and writes occasionally as The Outsider.

Tuesday 207: Sloop & Swimmer

Ahhh...summer in Maine!

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207 Paintings post everyish Tuesday around 5:30am EST on both The Maine  and jessicaleeives.com. Save thirty percent on any 4x4 inch oil on panel painting by making your purchase within the first week of its posting. Instead of $300 pay just $207, a number which just happens to be the Maine state area code.

Tuesday 207 Paintings are exclusive to The Maine. They depict the land, the light and the people that make this state a state of wonder. Jessica is editor of The Maine and writes occasionally as The Outsider.

Tuesday 207: Step Into Summer

Even though it's been a long, cold, rainy spring here in Maine, there's no stopping summer. It's coming -- and it's what keeps us going.

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207 Paintings post everyish Tuesday around 5:30am EST on both The Maine  and jessicaleeives.com. Save thirty percent on any 4x4 inch oil on panel painting by making your purchase within the first week of its posting. Instead of $300 pay just $207, a number which just happens to be the Maine state area code.

Tuesday 207 Paintings are exclusive to The Maine. They depict the land, the light and the people that make this state a state of wonder. Jessica is editor of The Maine and writes occasionally as The Outsider.

Tuesday 207: Walking Water

A human being is a container invented by water so it can walk around.

- from Job’s Body

Popham Colony was a short-lived English settlement founded the same year as the Jamestown Colony in Virginia. Over the course of its first and only year of existence in 1607 and 1608, settlers built the Virginia of Sagadahoc, the first English-built oceangoing vessel in the New World.

When Jonathan and I were at Popham Beach last summer we played in the waters at the mouth of the Kennebec River. This was the river by which Popham's settlers explored the land that would become Maine, seeking communication and trade with the Abenaki who lived along its banks. Later colonists to the area, building on the experience of the original Popham Colony, settled further up this river at the site of present-day Bath where winter storms and tides were not as severe. Bath, of course, became a renowned shipbuilding capitol; in the mid-19th century it was the fifth largest port in America and sent clipper ships criss-crossing across the waters of the world.

In the fall, after our late August swim at Popham Beach, Jonathan and I fished the headwaters of the Kennebec, the "long quiet waters" of the Abenaki. We waded in and walked the waters, just as we had at the beach.

Water is how we move in the world. It shapes our stories, our experiences, our histories. Rivers and oceans move us. Our ships, our paintings, and our bodies are all vessels.

 

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207 Paintings post everyish Tuesday around 5:30am EST on both The Maine  and jessicaleeives.com. Save thirty percent on any 4x4 inch oil on panel painting by making your purchase within the first week of its posting. Instead of $300 pay just $207, a number which just happens to be the Maine state area code.

Tuesday 207 Paintings are exclusive to The Maine. They depict the land, the light and the people that make this state a state of wonder. Jessica is editor of The Maine and writes occasionally as The Outsider.

What life is asking

Floating is a brand new 20" x 30" oil on panel.

Floating is a brand new 20" x 30" oil on panel.

13. No good life is possible unless it is organized around a vocation. If you try to use your work to serve yourself, you’ll find your ambitions and expectations will forever run ahead and you’ll never be satisfied. If you try to serve the community, you’ll always wonder if people appreciate you enough. But if you serve work that is intrinsically compelling and focus just on being excellent at that, you will wind up serving yourself and the community obliquely. A vocation is not found by looking within and finding your passion. It is found by looking without and asking what life is asking of us. What problem is addressed by an activity you intrinsically enjoy?

From The Road to Character by David Brooks

Tuesday 207: Hardy & Harbor

Hardy & Harbor / 4"x 4" / 2015

Now available through Glesason Fine Art

This weekend the Hardy Boat will start running ferry service from New Harbor to Monhegan for the 2015 season. I'll be one of the first on board, making the trip to drop off paintings at the island's Lupine Gallery. My husband will be a captain on the boat again this summer. As a freshman in high school he began working for Al & Stacie as a deckhand. He worked summers through college, and again when he wasn't out to sea as a merchant marine. He's carried more luggage than you or I will ever know, and he seems to have binoculars for eyes when it comes to spotting puffins on evening tours to Eastern Egg Rock. Last year Jonathan earned his 100-ton license and Al and Stacie, some of the best folks you'll ever meet, gladly promoted him to captain. After 20 years he switched out his green polo work shirts for a set of nice white button downs with lapels.

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207 Paintings post everyish Tuesday around 5:30am EST on both The Maine  and jessicaleeives.com. Save thirty percent on any 4x4 inch oil on panel painting by making your purchase within the first week of its posting. Instead of $300 pay just $207, a number which just happens to be the Maine state area code.

Tuesday 207 Paintings are exclusive to The Maine. They depict the land, the light and the people that make this state a state of wonder. Jessica is editor of The Maine and writes occasionally as The Outsider.

Looking Forward To Monhegan

Last week I submitted my application for the 2015 Monhegan Artist's Residency. This past winter I've been busy painting from the experience and memory of last summer's island trips -- the ferry ride over, day trippers in awe at Whitehead, and the island's population of plein air painters in action. I'll continue to paint Monhegan this coming summer no matter what, but the residency would provide me with an opportunity to spend the night on the island for the first time and better capture the full spectrum of its light and life. Right now I'm limited to the Hardy Boat's 10:00am arrival and 3:15pm departure!

Pictured here are five paintings I submitted with my residency application. All are oil on panel and range from 6" x 6" (top) to 20" x 48" (second from bottom). All have been completed in the new year and are not yet on my website. Please email me with any inquiries.

I've also included my short application statement below. For those who are interested, I hope it provides context for the work that I do -- and will continue to do!

 

 


 

"Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder." 

E.B. White

 

During the past two years I have made paintings of Monhegan. In this application and on my website you will notice their glaring similarity: all depict the island drenched in mid-day light. Why? My visits to Monhegan have always been limited to the Hardy Boat’s 10am arrival and 3:15pm departure. My husband captains this ferry. We are always traveling to and from the island, never staying. But presence is what I desire.

Picture me, sprinting across the island the moment the Hardy Boat docks, huffing up the hill, covering the terrain of trail 7 as quickly as possible, and clambering just below the edge of Whitehead to hurriedly set up for my shot before any other day-trippers arrive. Admittedly, the adrenaline and adventure of the rushed visual experience is typical, even attractive in our ADD culture; but it is ultimately draining and incongruous to my own practice of painting and being. Instead of being in a rush I want to take time to wonder. I want to be in a place. I want to already be at Whitehead, present and waiting, watching as the first visitors appear over the edge, pointing and shading their eyes from the expansive Atlantic before them. I want to witness their wonder. I want to wonder at their wonder. And wonder is hard pressed to rush.

Wonder is important to me. I have an entire blog devoted to it. Like the content of themaineblog.com, my paintings are about being in a place of wonder. My recent “outsiders” depict figures hiking, swimming, climbing, and being in a place through sustained, physical exploration. Wonder drives me to action; what is it to know a place not only through the eye but through the body as well, and then to show this place by releasing it back through the body and into paint, for the full circle wonder of the eye? My earlier window paintings shattered into my recent outsiders when I finally acted on the desire to be out there, beyond the window panes. 

Likewise, my Monhegan paintings express a desire to be out there, there now meaning Monhegan. I desire a sustained and physical exploration of place. I no longer want to come and go in a five hour window when all the light is high and all the community is noisy and bright. I no longer want to be in my mainland studio contemplating the photos I’ve taken of other artists working and learning on the island. I want to be there, less noisy and bright myself, to wonder and to know what the light, the colors, and the people are like in the morning when I wake, in the evening before I sleep, and in the middle of the night while I’m dreaming. I want to be there and to follow E.B. White’s admonition — “always” — at least for a month.