Painting OTR Flags for Washington Square Park

Paint your own 30 inch square silk flag to hang in Washington Square Park, across from Music Hall, this summer for $25. There are three (3) workshops scheduled during the next couple of weeks -- Sat March 10 at 1 pm at the Art Academy of Cincinnati; Sat March 24 at 1 pm in the Brewery District and Sat April 14 at 1 pm at Nast Trinity United.

I'm learning how to dye my two (2) 27 x 48 inch silk banners while my corporate sponsor comes to consensus on the final design I will paint on them with Dyna Flow, which is a new medium for me. About two dozen sponsored flags are being painted through collaboration with community groups and artists for the grand re-opening of the park this summer and will likely hang most of June and July, just in time for Cincinnati (The City That Sings) to host this year's World Choir Games.

This exhibit is based on the belief that art is a positive catalyst for expression and can enable community members to share experiences and connections with Washington Park. Stay tuned for more progress on this project during the next few weeks!


I've been putting my frame with the silk stretched on it up to the window of my studio to see how different designs and effects will look with sunlight shining through the silk as they hang on the lightposts in the park.

Monet Refuses the Operation
is a Lisel Mueller poem, shared with me by a poet friend who knew how scared I was to have my eyes operated on. Now that I've had the cataract surgeries and can see better than ever, I tried to copy one of Claude Monet's masterpieces in the Cincinnati Art Museum -- the Rocks at Belle Isle, shown above.
Seeing as an artist involves more than eyesight, which is why I love Lisel's poem, shared with you here in its entirety:

Doctor, you say there there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and changes our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

Lisel Mueller, thank you for this beautiful poetry. Claude Monet, thank you for the inspiration. Cincinnati Art Museum, thank you for letting the Ohio Plein Air Society paint copies of your masterpieces in January, allowing us to learn from the masters. Stephanie Cowell, thank you for your novel "Claude and Camille."

No Longer a Secret!
It's a relief to be able to blog a little bit more freely than I could in November or December about what I'm working on. This was painted as a surprise Christmas gift from one sister to another, so I actually completed it before my cataract surgeries on both eyes.
I don't really notice much difference in my paintings since the surgery. Unlike others, I am not seeing less yellow or any discernable color differences since Dr. Michael E. Snyder of the Cincinnati Eye Institute gave me improved vision via cataract surgery. The big difference to me is the amount of detail I can now see. But my paintings have never been much about detail anyway.
I enjoy tightrope walking the line between abstract and representational painting in my home portraits, especially when I can capture dramatic lighting effects in them. And as long as the people commissioning or receiving their home portraits love them, and can recognize the houses as uniquely theirs, I'm satisfied with the outcome.
One of the stories about this painting is the challenge I sometimes have taking my own photographs of a home when the painting is meant to surprise the recipient as a gift. I don't want to get caught taking the pictures!!
My favorite times of day for capturing dramatic light effects are a few hours after sunrise or later afternoon 3:30 - 5:30 pm. But children are usually home from school or people are home from work at these times, so I often have to take mid-day photos, where lighting is not quite as inspirational.
Surprisingly, this time of year is one of the best times for me to photograph a home, at least in Ohio and the midwest. I can always change the season and the landscaping to spring, summer or fall in the finished portrait. But sometimes I can see the lines (skeleton, bones) of the house through dense foliage, so it's easier to take pictures in the winter, early spring or late fall than in the summer.

I can see clearly again!

Sometime this summer, after the 4th of July, I realized I was having problems with my vision. But I didn't think much about it until I went to get my driver's license renewed. The state of Ohio gave me a license, even though I couldn't see a single line in the eye test without double vision. Boy, have I ever been a defensive driver ever since!

But with all the eye trouble in my family, I was scared and went to the eye doctor within the week. Imagine my surprise to learn I had severe cataracts in both eyes. Thankfully, that's something the Cincinnati Eye Institute could do something about, unlike my mother's macular degeneration.

However, it was daunting to learn that the solution was to replace the lenses in both my eyes with artificial ones. It's made me think a lot about artists through the years who didn't have that option.

Now that Dr. Michael E. Snyder has implanted new lenses in both my eyes, I can see again! What a miracle! I am so grateful. What's interesting is that the cataracts had not affected my painting as much as it had other aspects of my life. I realize now how little I have seen of people's facial expressions, especially their eyes, for quite some time. And how much communication comes from those things.

Lots of friends wondered if I'd see colors differently. Since they operate on one eye at a time, I could tell that there was really no difference in color, only in the amount of detail and clarity I'm now able to see. I wish you and yours a Happy 2012 and I look forward to the new year blessed with improved vision.

Florida in November
+ more to be grateful for this Thanksgiving!

1. Those of you for whom I’ve painted portraits of your homes and happy places this year; it’s been my privilege!
2. People who like and appreciate my work, especially those who have bought greeting cards, giftware or prints. And those who visit my studio on Final Fridays.
3. All the family members and friends who support my on my journey. Your encouragement means so much!
4. Artists Glenda Suttman and Margi Meier, who so graciously share studio space with me at the Pendleton Art Center, and all our fellow artist tenants there, who share meaningful information and inspire us every day.
5. Art on the Levee, Cincy Haus, Lavomatic Café, and BOOST! for displaying and selling my work; thank you!
6. So many friends who show up and help me set up and sell my work on Final Fridays and at other events, bringing refreshments, manpower, hope, and joy to the process.
7. Artists I’ve painted with on a regular basis in Mason and in Lebanon, particularly my teacher and mentor, Elmer Ruff.
8. The people who have written about, or promoted, my artwork, especially Therese Wantuch, Meredith Raffel, Mary Anne Frey, Kay Bush and Jason Sandhage; thanks!
9. Everyone who has referred me to someone who’s considered commissioning a painting and all those who have forwarded my eNewsletter or web site URL (http://www.cincinnatihomeportrait.com/)
10. The people who’ve organized artwork for the shows and charitable events I’ve participated in this year; well done!
11. Authors of books and articles that have empowered me. And filmmakers too! Curators who have installed inspirational exhibits that affected me this year. The conservationist who restored the Cincinnati Art Museum’s Van Gogh to its more original colors
12. The people whose years of effort resulted in the computer I’m looking at right now. Never have we had such power at our fingertips. I appreciate all my followers on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, etc. and the opportunity to see so many artists’ work and follow their journeys online.
13. The workers at FedEx, UPS and the post office who’ve helped me ship merchandise to my customers on time and without damage.
14. Those who have framed my paintings this year, bringing their expertise, knowledge and craftsmanship to finish the work with quality.
15. Life, eyesight, and the God-given ability to draw and paint.

Halloween Fun on Fri Oct 28

No, I did not think of the idea to decorate this pumpkin; I got it off Halloween magazine's web site courtesy of squidoo.com in an article about 15 things you can do with your pumpkin. But if you come to Final Friday at the Pendleton Art Center this month, you'll get the treat of seeing Marsh's second annual "Pimp That Pumpkin" exhibit as a bonus. Last year, there were several dozen decorated pumpkins: all really creative! I did one with the Chilean miners who were rescued by putting little chili peppers in a glass tube inside a pumpkin painted black.

You can vote for your favorites by putting money in to benefit ArtsWave and a People's Choice is named before the evening ends. If you want to learn more, or are interested in decorating a pumpkin to enter into the contest, see www.facebook.com/marshinc.

If you do come downtown on Final Friday, there is also the Haunted Cincinnati tour. For more details, check out http://www.queencityishaunted.com/.

And, of course, one of my favorite organized walks is the annual "Run Like Hell," where walkers and runners dress in Halloween costumes and are routed through an old cemetery in East Walnut Hills, where "Freddy" and other ghouls jump out behind trees and scare you. The party afterwards with live music, great food (goetta burgers) and costume prizes is in the parking lot of the old F&W publications building near Xavier's campus. See http://cincyrunlikehell.com/ for more info.

I'll be at Final Friday but may stop by the Run Like Hell party afterwards to see the costumes, dance and have a goetta burger and a beer on my way home. Will have to hit "Haunted Cincinnati" another time but you can now purchase my work at Cincy Haus, where these tours begin and end. It's right across the street from Lavomatic Cafe, a restaurant decorated with many of my Happy Cincinnati originals.

Happy Halloween!

Dr. Spock's Prescription
People my age make fun of how our parents raised us per Dr. Spock, but here's a prescription from his book that has stood me in good stead ever since training for my trip to the Grand Canyon. I suggest this might help most of us adults more than all the drugs on the market: check it out!

"Direct sunshine contains ultraviolet rays, which create vitamin D right in the skin. In the days before all babies automatically got all the vitamin D they needed from their formula or vitamin drops, and before the harmful effects of ultraviolet rays were fully understood, I recommended sunbaths for babies. Changes of air temperature are beneficial in toning up the body's system for adapting to cold or heat. A bank clerk is much more likely to become chilled staying outdoors in winter than a lumberjack, who is used to such weather. Cool or cold air improves appetite, puts color in the cheeks, and gives more pep to humans of all ages. It's good for a baby (like anyone else) to get outdoors for 2 to 3 hours a day (!), particularly during the season when the house is heated. ... in the northeastern part of the United States, most conscientious parents take it for granted that babies and children should be outdoors 2 or 3 hours a day when it isn't raining and the temperature isn't far below freezing."

I can testify to an improved life since spending only one hour outdoors a day; what a gift this has been! If it isn't raining hard, or below 15 degrees F, I try to get out there. More time spent outdoors can only help, my painting as well as life in general.

This is my painting of the Grand Canyon preferred by the friend who made the trip possible for me. All five Grand Canyon paintings are available as prints, from 12 inches square up to 18 inches square, unframed. Yesterday, I got my nighttime painting of the boat at Four Seasons Yacht Club sketched out; I hope to work on the real painting at Performance Lexus' event next Tuesday night October 11. Phone them to register if you'd like to attend.