These past months have raced by. I am aghast that so much time has elapsed since I last posted. I have three ways to explain what's been taking ALL my time:ongoing repairs and renovation, helping with first grade remote schooling, creation of my new garden obsession! But life should be freer for me now, so here we go!
Here is work directly related to my new house and my projects related to living in this area.
A quick background recap from my earlier post:
The one-story farmhouse was built in the 1860s in Smithfield, NC, by Burkett Jones, a cotton farmer and entrepreneur, an exConfederate soldier, who had been injured early in the war and sent home. The structure was moved to its present site in Hillsborough in 1997 to prevent its demolition at the expansion of the Smithfield airport.
Since the house's story is now part of mine, I want to weave its history into my art life.
I have several lines of work within this general subject and I hope now to be able to begin work on all of them.
First, the portraits of the original owners of my new old house, Burkett and Mary Ann Jones. Acrylic on board, 16" x16". I worked from a blurry many-times copied photo so felt quite free to simplify their images, paring them down to what I felt to be their essences. I will hang these over a doorway in my kitchen where they will preside over a long interior vista from back to front of house:
Second, one of very few drawings (to this point!) of my surroundings. I SO look forward to getting back to this! Reed pen and ink sketch of the view from my studio window on a cold February afternoon.
Next a couple of studies done in my ongoing project to make paint from our red clay soil. I have not had a chance to take up this strand again but will do so very soon. I truly have no idea where these will lead, which is fun. My life, as I said, should be freer!
Finally, a series of photos showing my garden's progress from the early bare days to the present. I struggled to keep this concise! Ish. ;D. I have hundreds of photos of the garden already!
Here are two shots from early October:
And here are recent ones:
This does not look like a garden of only a few months, does it? The topsoil I had delivered and tilled into the red clay was obviously what the garden wanted! I consider this garden a full-fledged member or my art life.
More to come and I am so happy to know that!!
Happy summer to those in this hemisphere and happy fall to our southern hemispheric friends!
Thank you, dear Jeffery! You and Stanley have been with us every step of the way... maybe we should add Beam and Finch to the house name! xoxo
Posted by: Laura Frankstone | June 03, 2021 at 08:19 AM
The Burkett Jones House has never been so well loved, so that now it proclaims: I am the BurkettJones-Frankstone House
Posted by: Jeffery Beam | June 03, 2021 at 06:59 AM