A shot of participants from Wine and Wonder Workshop at the Evergreen Heritage Center, held on Sunday, Sept. 9, 2012.  This was the first of a series of visual arts workshops planned for Evergreen.  While not much wine was flowing, all painters had a productive afternoon and enjoyed a beautiful early fall afternoon in the mountains and on the grounds of EHC in Mt.Savage, MD.
From the left, back to front...standing - Janice Keene, Director.  Participants Jeanne Cordts, Diane Engle, Egan S. Pratt. Far corner top right - Jane N. Madden

Artist in Residence

 ARTIST IN RESIDENCE....I have been chosen to serve as the resident artist at Catoctin Mountain National Park  near Thurmont, MD...(close to Camp David) in October.  I will be stationed in the Good Luck Lodge, and will be painting and speaking with park visitors.  I will also be speaking in area public schools. I will be working from October 15th through the 29th.  Please stop by and see the beauty of the mountains in the fall!! Also visit Cunningham Falls...a place of great beauty and solitude.

The very first suggestion of a "nation's park" came from artist George Catlin in 1832. Artists have always played a vital role in preserving our nation's treasures. Catoctin Mountain Park and the Catoctin Forest Alliance support this tradition today through the Artist-In-Residence program.
Artists help our national parks with their root mission: conservation and enjoyment. Historic records and technical drawings may help preserve the nuts and bolts of a national park, while the hand of an artist will preserve the park's soul. The artist's work draws the public closer to the park's resources, so that they enjoy it on a deeper level and help to preserve it.
Mission Statement: The Catoctin Mountain Artist-In-Residence (AIR) program, under the auspices of the Catoctin Forest Alliance, offers visual, literary, and performing artists an opportunity to work in a natural and historic setting to advance art, nature, and history education and appreciation.
  

Wine and Wonder - a painting workshop on behalf of the Evergreen Heritage Foundation

 Way Down at the Bottom of the Ocean  Oil 18 x 36 was selected for the following pairing.  Karen actually is the floral designer who chose my painting!

The following quoted from email of May 25, 2012:

Hi folks,

You may have seen our promotion about the event we are hosting with the Mountain Laurel Garden Club.  Next Saturday, the garden club is doing an open house called “Blooming Art” at The Gallery Shop.  About a dozen garden club members have stopped by, selected a piece of two-dimensional art that speaks to them, and will be designing a floral arrangement to be on display next to the artwork during the open house.

I am contacting you to make you aware that your work has been selected!  I invite you to stop by during our normal business hours of 10-5 next Saturday, June 2 to welcome the garden club and see the work they have created.  I hope this will be the first of an annual partnership with the club.

I will be sending an email reminder to the entire membership later today but I wanted to make you aware since your artwork is a big part of making the event a success.

Karen Reckner

Executive Director

Garrett County Arts Council

301-334-6580

www.garrettarts.com

 Famine:  Coffin Ship  Oil  18 x 36  June 2012

This is the next in my series Famine, depicting the Irish potato blight and the unprecedented results, which impacted an entire country while the rest of the world ignored the plight of a starving people.  There are also a series of poems which accompany each painting, to be posted  in the near future. Paintings and poems will eventually be organized as an historical continuum.


This piece chronicles the fate of so many emigrants who trusted in the veracity of ships' captains to take them from the shores of a dying country to the expected salvation to be found in America.
So many people died at sea from disease and hunger.  The unscrupulous captains who failed to provide the conditions on board that were paid for and promised had their ships dubbed "coffin ships".

In this painting, skeletal and anatomical forms float about beneath a stormy sea toward a final resting place...the tiny boat in a vortex of darkness, wind and rain is symbolic of the immensity of the undertaking the fleeing Irish people  were willing to face in  hope of a better life. 


The completed series and poetry will form a large part of a one- person show scheduled for June 2012 in the Gallery of St. Francis by The Sea, Pine Knoll Shores, North Carolina.


 

Departure     (Famine Series) 

Stand in queue

dockside

you shabby sorrowful

refugees

from the blighted bone-dark hills

you leave behind.

Fetid fields exchanged in no good barter

for bilge-black cargo cave.

Death wears the Captain’s face

and comes for some before land

as a short plank slide to lightless depths,

rendering unheard

prayers for a promised land.

Green is but a fading memory.

 Invitation   Soft dunes beckon a summer wanderer.  Oil 16 x 20  June 2012

Random Seeds featured in the 52 over-sized card deck for The Maryland Federation of Art's fundraiser event Queen of Arts, May 2012