Morning walk wth friends

Jake, my dear farm collie, and Cat, my shadows.

It's official!

"Go Fetch" edition 2/25 is accepted Into the Sporting Art Show at the Louisa Gould Gallery in Vineyard Haven, Martha's Vineyard. The gallery was voted "best gallery on the Island" by Cape Cod Life.

Foundry pictures

Here's "Go Fetch" at the foundry, getting the patina. The first picture is "naked - no patina has been applied yet. It's been sandblasted and residual patches of ceramic shell and fire scale have been removed. The patina is color resulting from heat and dilute acids reacting with the copper in the bronze. Patinas really pull the form together, adding a finishing touch. The chemicals and heat are applied, and, finally, wax is brushed on the hot metal to protect the patina.

today's painting...

Just started this fellow - barred owl, we have so many here, they are ethereal to listen to. This is just the start of a 30 x 40" ink painting on Yupo.

Dressage Spirit

What a lovely fall day - spent too much of it inside working on marketing! But I did manage to start a new painting, "Dressage Spirit", another pen and ink on Yupo paper, roughly 20' x 30'. The original, as well as a limited edition print run, will be available.

Inspiration

Inspiration comes in many forms, on dog's lolling tongues, on dragonflies ensnared in webs, little boys sticky fingers. This poem was sent to me by a wonderful Yahoo group I am on called Panhala. It, along with so many other things, has been the source of my inspiration this morning. Enjoy.

Still

I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I'll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:

but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything is

magnificent with existence, is in
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:

I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond the intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up

and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:

I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:

at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!

~ A. R. Ammons ~

(Collected Poems 1951-1971)

New Beginnings!

Welcome to Carol Lake Studios brand new blog! I'll be posting update here on my artwork, instruction, exhibitiions and competitions, as well as inspirational quotes and snippets of information about my world.

Here's one of my most recent small works, in pen and ink, of an Arabian mare.The original will be for sale, as well as a limited edition of signed and numbered prints.

Enjoy!