Vignettes of My Yard

The Midnight Sun

All this light makes me manic and an insomniac, when it's dark and cold I want to hibernate like a bear but when the days reach 65 degrees and the sun does not set until 11:15 pm, I cannot just go to bed and go to sleep, I am wide awake like an owl reading, watching a movie, looking at the lake and listening to the night sounds of the swans, loons and other denizens of Beverly Lake.

I am becoming obsessed with the light at midnight. So I grabbed my artist friend Sharen AK Harris http://sharenakharris.com/about.html we took a late night drive to the Matanuska River to sketch the scene and study the light. Isn't it beautiful? The scene is defused with blues and the light reflects from within just like a precious gem. It is quite otherworldly like some in between world. I want to paint this scene but need to capture the drama and special light of Alaska's Midnight Sun.

by: Robert Service

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

The Beeswax Connection

My encaustic medium beeswax is always an adventure to get. The health food store carried beeswax for making beauty products and such but it is very expensive 15.00 per pound. A pound equals about one encaustic painting. Each painting is one-of-a-kind and made even more special because of the beeswax.

My connection for wax, "Joe" in Eagle River, Alaska was not returning my repeated calls, I don't know what's up with that. So I got with my friend Bob the roadside philosopher and Carin builder his Russian friends make candles so I asked him for their number and called; Alex, he couldn't have been nicer and offered to sell me 40 pounds for $280.00. Any other time I would love to get 40 pounds but alas the price was too steep. I asked him for one hundred dollars worth. Getting to his house about 60 miles away was a beautiful scenic drive we found him way out on Lazy Mountain and what a charming place his wife, son and old Russian Grandmother were working on the garden. Their family business is Holy Archangel Candles
http://www.holyarchangelcandles.com/ click on the pictures section to see some wonderful pictures of the area in which we live and some lovely photos of their family and homestead.

Long story short I made a great deal on about 20 pounds of wax at about $5.00 per pound and he gave me a beeswax candle.

Beeswax is not as easy to get as you think quite a bit of it comes from Canada but the shipping is very,very expensive as well as the lower 48 (thats what Alaskans call everywhere else in the continental U.S.). Raising bees in Alaska is also very expensive the bee keeper must buy new bees every year because they cannot survive the winter unless they are housed in heated trailers. It seems so sad they have to die off every winter.

Please don't get me started on the colony collapse disorder that is killing bees by the trillions. They leave to pollinate the flowers and gather nectar and mysteriously do not return to their hives. I think it's pesticides causing the problems and perhaps some more complicated issues. Bees are like the canary in the mine when they die - we die the cycle of life is broken.

Now I have my wax and am brewing up a batch of encaustic medium, (beeswax and rare damar resin) it smells delicious.

Rain Forest Home - Costa Rica

Rain Forest Home

Encaustic Wax

12" x 14"

NFS

(yet)

This is my impression of the rain forest. Pretty much my view from the Linda Vista by the Arenal Volcano. I booked the most remote location I could findon the Google map for the best view of the Volcano. But just like Denali in Alaska, it makes it's own clouds and we did not get to see any fire however we could hear and feel it rumbling, cool!

It's hard to get the perspective of the jungle there is just so much life in abundance and things going on everywhere. I could not focus on one thing, still I wanted to get the impression of thick lush jungle. I put one of their mysterious round ancient balls in the picture they are so perfectly round, they could only have been carved by people they are monolithic (my big work of the day) sculptures. They are dotted all over the country and if you ask a Tican where they came from they just do not know, or they simply say aliens.

This painting was started 2 years ago on my first trip to Costa Rica in colored pencil, I took it back this year and painted on top of the colored pencil with acrylics and the other day I decided to get experimental on the thing. Peter affixed it to a hard substrate so I could paint on it with encaustic wax.

Strictly speaking you are not supposed to mix wax and acrylics together but this is my experiment. I do however plan to send it to Jose at the Osa Gallery in Puerto Jimenez, they are going watch it and see how an encaustic painting acts in 80 to 90 degree heat with high humidity. It should be interesting.

BTW how do you like my new colors? Do you think I should go back to black?

Spring and Swans

Our friends the Swans have been building a nest across the lake from us, I had no idea how big their nest is, they even built a roof on it. When we get the boat in the water I will pay them a visit and get pictures. They meandered over to our dock for a little visit this morning. They want swan snack but I don't have anything yet except bread and that's not good for them.

Mother - Madonna

Blue Madonna

Oil Painting

Judy Vars

12 X 24 framed

priceless

When love is gone, when stars at night lose lustre, when the warm sun of spring fails to cheer the heart, when the kiss is cold and friends have gone forever, when youth has fled to follow nimbler feet, and old age points the way to life's darkening pathway, when strangers rushing by at breathless pace forget the courtesies they owe the world and push aside those frailer than the rest, when faith is waning and hope forlorn has seized thy heart, and charity shall pass the needy by, there wells a sweet and tender love within thy bosom, to tell thee that the world is good!

A voice shall softly whister within thy soul, "Mother."

Write Your MoM a letter today and tell you mom you love her.

FIRST FRIDAY AT VIRTU BEE THERE OR BEE SQUARE

WAX SQUARED
MAY 7 - 31
AN EXHIBITION OF THE ALASKA CHAPTER OF
INTERNATIONAL ENCAUSTIC ARTISTS (AKIEA)
OPENING RECEPTION FIRST FRIDAY
MAY 7, 6-9PM
LIVE MUSIC - IN THE BELFRY
FEATURED ARTISTS:
NANCYP. BURNHAM, RUTH CARTER,
JOYCE E COOLEGE, SUSAN DELGALVIS,
ERIN ADAIR FALLDORF, KRISTA FLECKENSTEIN,
CINNAMON O'FIHELLY, LESLEY HARRISON,
JANET C HICKOK, ASHLEY DOYLE KELLEY,
JANAAN KITCHEN, KOKO MIKEL, DARLA MEYERS,
LAURI PACKENBUSH, KATHY SMITH, STAN STECK,
THERESE STOKES, SHEARY CLOUTH SUITER,
YULIYAHELGESEN-THOMPSON, DOT TIDEMAN
JUDY A VARS, B WILLIAMS

400 W. 4TH AVE.
PHONE: 907.25VIRTU
VIRTU@VIRTUGALLERY.BIZ
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT AKIEA CONTACT;
SHEARY CLOUGH SUITER - WWW.BACKDOOR DESIGNS.COM

WORKS OF FRONT "LOVE SCIENCE" BY YULIA HELGESEN-THOMPSON,"POINT OF NO RETURN" BU CINNAMON O'FIHELLY, "FORMULATED SURF" BY RUTH CARTER, "ELECTRIC KNIGHTS" BY SUSAN DELGALVIS, AND "HORSEHEAD NEBULA" BY KOKO MIKEL

Costa Rica 2010 / 99 Assorted Photos

So If you want to see pictures of our holiday in Costa Rica pull up a chair get some coffee or tea and I'll throw down some assorted pictures (stay or go) if you go, I will understand, I know how boring other peoples photographs can be. I am taking it easy today and trying not to do too much too soon after being sick. .This slide show took me most the day to do.
As you can see we had a wonderful time, met so many cool and interesting people, did some sightseeing, and plenty of sitting around gossiping, solving the worlds problems and drinking coffee.
I learned that "Pura Vida" means "pure life" and "tranquillo" means "chill out."