"High Over Pennsylvania"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

I was quite hypnotized last night watching one of my favorite TV programs - Aerial America, on the Smithsonian Channel.  I saw hundreds of paintings in my head - patterns and patchworks of colors and shapes - I just wish I could cruise over land like a bird.  With a camera.  Aerials get me so excited for someone afraid of heights.

Between the hours-long paintings I'm working on for an upcoming show, I am in need of letting loose, with no worries of details, no sketching, just swirling the oils around.  So with great inspiration from my favorite program, I hope to continue this series for a while and hope you enjoy the view.

This bird's-eye perspective is over the farmlands of Pennsylvania.  

This painting will be my last of 2016 - my 89th painting this year. 

~ and a Happy New Year to you.

Happy Holidays

Wishing you and yours

Peace & Love

2017 Mini Wall Calendars!

SOLD OUT

"Flower Girls"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

I've imposed some much-needed, happy, cheerful acts on myself lately.  Baking cookies, Crock-Pot stew, the Muppets Christmas Carol and painting this colorful, soul-enriching piece featuring Diego Rivera's Flower Festival: Feast of Santa Anita. 

A couple of things I need to mention here - you don't see much progress on my blog because I'm working on paintings for a solo show held in early March.  It kills me not to reveal them as I go.

And... for those who've asked?  I have a calendar not quite ready, I know it's late in the year, but it's coming and I'll shout from the mountain top when it is.

Now for the artist Diego Rivera.  Born in 1886 in Guanajuato, Mexico - a large, colorful, overbearing, talented painter best known for his depictions of the working class and native Mexicans.  At the age of 35, through a government program, he painted a series of murals in public buildings about the country's people and its history, some controversial and all very powerful.

Rivera was a lady's man, married twice before marrying the artist Frida Kahlo who was 20 years younger - both known for their interest in radical politics and Marxism.  They fought often and divorced and remarried in 1940 - Kahlo died in 1954 and Rivera married again, to his art dealer.  He died several years later from cancer and heart failure in 1957.

Rivera's Flower Festival was painted in 1931 depicting a flower festival held on Good Friday in Santa Anita, included in a solo exhibition at MoMA the same year.  

"Positives and Negatives"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

From inside the National Gallery of Art in DC, a woman viewing one of Franz Kline's powerful abstracts.

"Light Waves"

8 x 10"

oil on panel
sold

Today is Giving Tuesday and I am participating in my own way - donating 75% of the final sale of this painting to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home here in Atlanta.  This hospice operates solely on private donations and cared for my dad.

"Ode To Autumn"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

One of the many masterpieces in our National Gallery of Art in DC is Winslow Homer's Autumn.  It will take your breath away.  It's casual and approachable.  Homer's rich reds, bronzes, greys, greens and golds are as stunning as the fall leaves that surround us during these few weeks. Ode to autumn.

Winslow Homer is an American treasure, born 1836 in Boston - a printmaker, painter, illustrator.  A little-known fact - at the age of 25 he was sent to the front lines of the Civil War to sketch battle scenes, camp life, commanders - all of which were published in Harper's magazine. Those sketches were later formed into realized paintings when Homer returned home.

Homer then turned his attenton to more nostalgic scenes of childhood and family - then to postwar subjects of Reconstruction and depictions of African American life after emancipation.   The most familiar paintings of Winslow Homer are his landscapes and seascapes - done is his later years when he moved to Prouts Neck, Maine.  It has been said Homer led an isolated life as an old man but continued to paint vigorously, hinting a turn to more abstract and expressive art.  He died at the young age of 74.

Speaking of American treasures....

I watched President Obama's ceremony today, awarding 21 Medal of Freedom recipients who all are truly outstanding humanitarians who've made positive, progressive, compassionate, brilliant contributions of our country.  I will miss President Obama for his grace and thoughtfulness and reminding me what's important and good about us.  Take some time and watch the ceremony in its full version here.

~ Happy Thanksgiving

"The Hill"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

There is so much I'd like to express.

But this is my painting blog. 

Art does soothe the soul when it's needed most.

I've just returned from a trip to visit family and spent an afternoon soothing my soul in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.  As I crossed Constitution Avenue on my walk back to the car from the museum, I stopped to admire our newly-renovated, unscaffolded Capitol Building.  

"Woman To Woman"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

Ahhhh.  Nothing quite as exquisite as a Vermeer painting.  The artist Jan Vermeer was born in the Netherlands in 1632, one of the most highly regarded Dutch artists of his time and all time.

There are scant records of Vermeer's start as an artist, but experts draw a straight line of influence to Rembrandt and Caravaggio.  Many of his masterpieces are about domestic scenes, depictions of women doing chores around the house - the notable and famous painting Girl with a Pearl Earring portrayed a young woman who worked in his household.

Jan Vermeer suffered financially in his old age, due to the Dutch economy tanking after being invaded by France in 1672.  He was deeply indebted by the time of his death in 1675, only then becoming more world-renowned and leaving approximately 36 paintings that are hung in prominent museums around the world including the gem you see in my painting titled Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

"Give Me a W"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

My homage to Rockwell and our World Series - a young Chicago Cubs fan viewing Norman Rockwell's The Dugout.

GO CUBS!

"Cleared For Takeoff"

8 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

Speaking of the beach...

A friendly gull I met last week.

"Value Analysis"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I started this new study yesterday morning.  The painting the young woman is looking up at is one of my favorites by Norman Rockwell titled Girl in a Mirror.

I was listening to Michelle Obama's inspirational speech as I was painting.  Here is a portion that stuck with me...

"What message are our little girls hearing about who they should look like, how they should act? What lessons are they learning about their value as professionals, as human beings, about their dreams and aspirations?"

You can read Michelle Obama's speech in full here.

"A Way Of Life"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

When I began listing works of art I'd like to feature portraying the American Spirit, I remembered this exquisite painting in Crystal Bridges titled The Indian and the Lily by George de Forest Brush, done in 1887.  It's one of the many pieces in the museum that knocked my socks off.  It is so intimate in size, so beautifully painted, so tender, a glimpse of a moment in the life of a Native American Indian.

A little bit about the artist, George de Forest Brush - born in Tennessee, raised in Brooklyn and Darien, Connecticut, he trained in New York then later in Paris under the brilliant artist Jean-Leon Gerome.  Gerome is one of my personal favorites and I can use the same descriptions of his work - intimate, exquisite, precise realism, glimpses into personal lives.  The influence of Gerome is so very evident in Brush's paintings.

After Brush returned to America and in 1882, he ventured west with his brother and found his subject, America's native people.  For more than a year he lived among the Arapahoe and Shoshone in Wyoming and the Crow in Montana - creating paintings and etchings of Indians 'far removed from the reality of contempory Indian life'.  Brush chose to depict the Indians in a 'timeless environment undisturbed by the advent of the modern'.  He resented the rapid industrial revolution and how it negatively affected the Native Americans, instead he desired to portray them in their way of life and their connection to the natural world.

An article I found tied Brush's painting to the story of Narcissus, the perils of seeking an unattainable perfection and the novel Imensee, a story of a man reaching out for a perfect water lily but nearly drowns when he falls into the pond, getting tangled in the roots of this perfect flower.  He climbs out of the water, looks back at the water lily floating calmly - a metaphor for the struggle of the Indian tribes maintaining their way of life in a complicated, progressing world.

You should take time to look at more of Brush's amazing paintings.  They offer peace and tenderness in these days of anxiety and unrest.

"Legacy"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I'll tell you a couple of things you don't know about me.

I love major league baseball.  We watch nearly every Braves game and we're bummed the season is ending this weekend.  We often watch late night LA Dodgers games for the pleasure of listening to Vin Scully announce the play-by-plays.  And sadly, that simple pleasure is coming to an end.  So a salute to Vin Scully, who's retiring after 67 seasons as the Voice of the Dodgers.  You'll be so missed.  On a happy note, the Chicago Cubs may very well be in the World Series and I'm rooting for them to go all the way.  Truth is, no other sports do a thing for me.  Just baseball.

Another thing you don't know about me - I failed Art History in college.  Two different classes as a matter of fact.  So now, I'm not only atoning for that, I'm avid about it.  The older I get, the more I grasp history and how art connects to it, to us.  You're never too old to learn.

Which brings me to my new project.  I'm mapping out the work for an upcoming solo show in the spring.  My recent visit to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art got me thinking about our American history - how art reflected the times, the movements, the struggles, the politics, everyday life.  

That notion evolved along with the summer of this Presidential election.  What's happened to me is I'm feeling defensive more and more about what kind of country we want, what we aspire to.  Do we embrace the past lessons and have we learned from them?  Do we want to move forward, progress as people, as a nation?  Do we accept our differences and find a way to live in harmony?  Are we proud of how we got here, our ancestors who many were immigrants?  Don't we want to be proud of our melting pot?  Do we want to be respected and show respect to one another?

That has brought me to an idea, a theme - something in the vein of American Pride or Spirit.  When I think in those terms, the best artworks I know come to mind.  I have a true passion for American art - you may have picked up on that.  Hopper, Rockwell, Thomas H Benton, Wyeth to name a few - depictions of who we are as Americans.  What we've accomplished thru thick and thin.  

So that's where I'm heading with my idea and I'd like you to be involved.  Be my focus group.  Offer ideas of iconic works of art that convey that American spirit.  I'll be working on small studies as I go - give me feedback.  Poopoo it if you want, give me a thumb's up if you want.  It all means something to me.

Now - a little bit about my new painting, which features Portrait of Alexander Hamilton by John Trumball, which hangs in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  John Trumbull was an artist during the American Revolutionary War, famous for his historical paintings - his Declaration of Independence is on the back side of the 2-dollar bill.

Trumball painted Hamilton's portrait in 1792, one of many made of Hamilton and considered the 'greatest known portrait' of one of our Founding Fathers.  

And a Happy October to you ~ 

"Souvenirs"

8 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

Happy Friday.

Before I post the link to this new painting going on auction tonight, I have a cool story to tell you.  

Yesterday I received an email from a woman asking about a painting I had done back in 2013.  I replied it had sold way back. She asked for a print. I replied I don't make prints.

She then told me the subject, a bungalow I spotted in Nebraska, on our road trip from San Francisco back to Atlanta, was her family's home.  

In disbelief, I asked her for the street address so I could compare it to my original photo - then with Google street view, I found the house, compared it to my photo and damn, if it wasn't the house!  In this big country, in all of the millions of houses in all of the small towns, I painted her house.  It still blows my mind.  

The number one question I'm asked is 'does anyone recognize themselves in your paintings?'  And to this day, in twelve years of doing over a couple of thousand paintings, it hasn't happened yet.  But someone out there, hundreds of miles away, recognized their house.  Absolutely freaking amazing.

Okay - back to my new painting.

A woman resting on a bench in the Art Institute of Chicago, with her Hopper gift bag full of souvenirs.

"Fried Fish"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

I got my Hopper on today.

What was once a neighborhood restaurant around East Atlanta.

"Little Surfer"

7 x 5"

oil on panel
sold

A girl and her boogie board in the ocean in Miami Beach, Florida.

"Life On Marsh"

16 x 4"

oil on panel
sold

I decided to paint a serene landscape today, 1 - because I haven't painted a landscape in some time and 2 - it's a mellow Sunday and 3 - because I rocked out to the 30th Anniversary for Bob Dylan all afternoon while I painted.

 left half detail

right half detail

A panoramic view from the coast on Rock Harbor, Cape Cod.

"Flooded"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

This was a study I did in the spring and decided to hang on to it - but this seems like the right time to offer it on auction to raise money. 

I donated the proceeds to the Red Cross Louisiana Flood Relief Fund - join me in an effort to help our friends in need.  To donate directly to the Red Cross Flood Relief Fund, click here.

"Wife Guard"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

I just  L-u-r-v-e  how this painting turned out.

From the beach on Cape Cod, a man keeping watch over his sunbathing wife.

"Cypresses"

6 x 9-1/2"

oil on panel
sold

Most of you know bits and pieces of the life of Vincent van Gogh.  I promise you, if you've never seen a painting of his in person, you're really missing out on the splendor of brush strokes, the thick, rich colors swirling around the canvas, the movement, the passion that van Gogh had of the world around him.  

Van Gogh was 36-years-old when he painted 'Cypresses' - during his year-long stay at the asylum in Saint-Remy and a year before his death.  It is a more close-up view of the the tall and massive trees he found 'beautiful as regards lines and proportions, like an Eyptian obelisk'.  

"Head and Shoulders"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

Since I was a teenager, I've been fascinated with realism - or in this case, hyper-realism.  Just the idea of how an artist executes the artwork boggles my mind.  You see paintings in museums that look like a photograph, so precise it's staggering.  I wanted to do that for years, until I realized I wasn't up to it.  I'm more interested, now, in realism with a looser style - although you'll notice some paintings lean tighter and some, like much of these smaller pieces I frequently auction, are more painterly.  It keeps me sane.

The hyper-realism sculpture I feature in this new painting is by Evan Penny titled 'Old Self: Portrait of the Artist as He Will (Not) Be'.  Not only is this work of art insanely precise, down to every wrinkle and whisker and fold, the cast of shadows under the strong lighting is so very cool - not to mention the reactions of the museum patrons.  Evan Penny has a great website and on the Crystal Bridges Museum's website, you can read 'A Conversation With Evan Penny' that will give you insight of the artist's thoughts.

That's Progress

I've started on a larger painting for an upcoming show that features Rockwell's 'The Problem We All Live With'.   If you're interested, I'll be posting my progress on my blog Karin Jurick Paints. 

~ Happy Monday

"Bear In Mind" (study)

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

One of the star attractions in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait's 1856 painting 'A Tight Fix - Bear Hunting, Early Winter'.  The scene brings to mind the movie The Revenant - a true story of frontiersman Hugh Glass, who's mauled by a grizzly and abandoned by his group of fur trappers.  Interesting is, although there's no direct evidence this scene is based on Hugh Glass, it is strikingly similar to scenes in the movie.  The Museum of Native American History, not far from Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Arkansas has one of the only rifles known to belong to Jim Bridger, one of the fur trappers in Hugh Glass's hunting group.

The summary of Tait's painting, in the museum, describes it as 'an icon of American cultural mythology and masculinity'.  When it was first shown, art critics said Tait 'botched the representation of the second hunter, making it unclear whether he's aiming at the bear - neither bear nor man is winning - so a bullet is the only solution to the 'tight fix'.  

More interesting, the summary goes on describing 'critics were particularly sensitive to an impasse between white and black fighters.'   Keep in mind, Tait painted this during the deadlocked war over slavery in the Kansas Territory.  The books of this time were Uncle Tom's Cabin and stories of Davy Crockett where hunting animals and runaway slaves were talked about in similar terms.  

Arthur Tait was born British, and moved to New York City at the age of 31.  He established a hunting camp in the Adirondack Mountains - completely immersed in the frontier life and sport hunting - he produced many paintings and lithographs of related scenes that were wildly popular during his career.

"Walk A Mile" (study)

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

Norman Rockwell's profound 1964 painting 'The Problem We All Live With' is on the top of my Rockwell list.  It depicts 6-year-old Ruby Bridges, an African-American girl, being escorted to an all-white public school in New Orleans, by four deputy U.S. marshalls.  What is so very effective is the viewer is seeing the point of view from the angry crowd, the hint being the racial slurs on the wall and the tomato splattered in between the figures.  

The image was published in a 1964 issue of Look magazine - Rockwell's contract with the Saturday Evening Post ended in 1963 due to Rockwell's continued frustration with the magazine's limitations on his expressions of progressive social interests, including his personal views on civil rights and racial integration.

Norman Rockwell's granddaughter, Abigail, recently wrote a compelling article in the Huffington Post titled Would There Be Norman Rockwell Without The Saturday Evening Post?  Rockwell undoubtedly evolved as an illustrator between 1916 and 1963 - becoming a storyteller with his images like no other.  His career with the Post yielded 322 covers before he ended his contract.

Ruby Bridges, at the age of 56, visited the painting in the White House in 2011 - at the request of President Obama.

The CNN writer, Bob Greene, wrote about that event in this article.  Within that article, these words struck me "..the message of the painting is so powerful that it goes well beyond the incident it portrays. The message transcends our usual Democrats-vs.-Republicans, conservatives-vs.-liberals, left-vs.-right squabbling.  Rockwell was a genius not just because of the technical skill of his artistry, but because of his eye for the telling detail. And in "The Problem We All Live With," the key detail is how he framed the four U.S. marshals who are accompanying that child to school. We do not see their faces; in the painting, the men are cropped at their shoulders.

That is the power and the story of the painting: Four men were accompanying Bridges to school, yes, but the point was, the United States of America was accompanying her. We see the men's "Deputy U.S. Marshal" armbands, and that is what matters. The painting tells us: This country may have its flaws, but when right and wrong are on the line, the nation, in the end, usually chooses to stand for right."

"Coast Guard"

10 x 9"

oil on panel
sold

Hoping this basset hound puts a smile on your face.

From the beach on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

Please click here for a larger view.

"Ziegfeld's Girl"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

Jessica Penn, the sultry woman in Robert Henri's painting, was an actress and dancer in the famous Ziegfeld Follies.  I love Robert Henri's work - he introduced a new way of portraiture by painting on a mostly black background where the model's face is the main focus, emerging out of the dark surroundings. 

Robert Henri has an interesting bio - his last name was Cozad, his middle name was Henry.  His father founded the town of Cozaddale, Ohio. In 1882, Mr. Cozad was in a dispute with a rancher over the right to pasture cattle on the Cozad family's land - he ended up shooting and killing the rancher, cleared of wrongdoing, but the town turned against him and his family.  Mr. Cozad fled to Colorado with his family, changed their names to erase the incident and his sons posed as adopted children under the surname Henri.

As a young man, Robert was a student at the famed Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, went back and forth to Paris, taught at the New York School of Art - students were famous painters like Rockwell Kent, Edward Hopper, George Bellows to name a few.  Also to note, Mary Cassatt was his distant cousin.  

Robert Henri led a successful, celebrated life as a painter and died at the age of 64.

From the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, a woman admires Robert Henri's portrait of 'Jessica Penn in Black with White Plumes'.

"Sunroom"

5 x 7"

oil on panel
sold

A visitor resting in the sunlit passageway in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas.

"Lean In"

9 x 12"

oil on panel
sold

I've been hard at work on this new painting that took a good part of a week to complete.  And that, my friends, is why I frequently veer off and paint small, quicker piecess.  It keeps me sane.

My painting depicts a museum visitor leaning in on Pablo Picasso's iconic 'Guernica'.

Please click here for a larger view.

Speaking of icons,  Bill Cunningham, a fixture in New York City, passed away at the age of 87.  If you don't know, Bill was a legendary fashion photographer for the New York Times for over 40 years.

He was easy to spot, on his bicycle, wearing his signature blue jacket and always with a camera - spotting and capturing fashion trends up and down the sidewalks of NYC.  He inspired me to see the great diversity of humans and having the guts to get out there with my camera.

A really charming and interesting documentary to watch is Bill Cunningham New York  (available on Netflix) - you'll love it.

"Enlightened"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

On my recent trip to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, I spotted this young lady - she really impressed me with her genuine interest in the art.  I suspect she was taking personal notes of the pieces she really liked.

The painting she is studying is 'Landscape' by Robert Seldon Duncanson.  The artist, at 20 years of age, decided he'd rather paint canvases than houses, which he'd been doing up until then.  He was largely self-taught, had a long career as an artist until his death at age 51.

Shortly after the Civil War broke out, Duncanson exiled to Canada,  seeking out a place where racism would not get in the way of his profession as an artist.  There he studied the landscape paintings of Canadian artists, moved to the UK and toured with his artworks - he was well received and the prestigious London Art Journal declared him a master of landscape painting.

Duncanson had an important impact on American art.  His father was Scottish-Canadian, his mother was African-American and it was said Duncanson had infused his paintings with an African-American sensibility although he once wrote 'I have no color on the brain; all I have on the brain is paint.'

Duncanson's 'Landscape' depicts, very small, loggers floating rafts of timber down the Saint Lawrence River near Montreal with the glow of the sunset, a signature subject of the artist's, of a mundane workday activity in a beautiful setting.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Listen Up

I wanted to start this first week of summer with a highly-recommended trip you must take - to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  I've wanted to go for a while and just packed a bag and took a long road trip to the small town of Bentonville in Arkansas.  The red star shows you where Bentonville is....

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art was founded by the Walton Family Foundation - the Walmart Family as we know it.  The philanthropist and arts patron and collector, Alice Walton, is to thank for this amazing museum.

On arrival, I parked my car right in front of this banner - featuring one of my very favorite American painters, Wayne Thiebaud.  I was soooo excited.

The museum is part of a 120-acre park, with nature trails and sculpture gardens throughout.

Did I mention it was free?  And parking is free too.

I am very partial to American Art and this museum takes you in a timeline of our country, from colonial times to contemporary - just outstanding.  A few of my favorites were....

 Alexander Hamilton by Giuseppe Ceracchi

Ward by George Tooker

Provincetown by Richard Estes

Haystacks by Martin Johnson Heade

Ambulance Call by Jacob Lawrence

About the town of Bentonville, Arkansas - 

It is a charming, middle-America, safe and friendly place to visit.  I recommend staying at the 21c Museum Hotel in downtown, a block from the town square and very near Crystal Bridges.  I loved my stay and wanted to spread the good word.

~ Happy Summer

"A Paper Trail"

5 x 7"

oil on panel
sold

In times of sorrow and grief, I paint.

A young lady enthusiastically sketches on the floor in the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco.

"Floored"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

From the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, a young woman sketches on the floor in front of John Singer Sargent's 'The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit'.

"A Tradition"

12 x 9"

oil on panel

sold

My homage to one of my all-time favorite movies Ferris Bueller's Day Off, on its 30th anniversary.  At the time it came out in 1986,  I was still missing my life in Chicago as a teenager just a few years back.  There's a scene in the movie when Ferris, his girlfriend Sloane and his best friend Cameron go through the Art Institute of Chicago - something I'd done dozens of times and even cut school to do so.  The three friends stop and stand in front of the three Picassos - here's a snapshot from the movie....

Well since then, many people have mimicked the pose - it became a tradition.  And their visit to an art museum proved to be an inspiration for young people to do the same.  That's a good thing.

I read a good article this week How Ferris Bueller's Day Off Perfectly Illustrates the Power of Art Museums - and a portion of the article, referring to Cameron's fixation on Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,  I really like this quote from the curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum - "I think that absorption of diving into a picture is as though you have seen yourself looking back at you and you have dived in so deeply you cease to exist," she says about life changing art. "What I tell people when they go through art museums is there will be a moment where you are dumbstruck in front of something and it changes your life forever."

About the Picassos - from left to right is The Red Armchair, Portrait of Sylvette David and Femme Assise, 1949, which was sold on auction.

Please click here for a larger view.

"Go With The Flow II"

Here is the companion to Go With The Flow I  -

Go With The Flow II

5 x 5"

oil on panel
sold