Fill Your Hand, 16x20

Cowgirl and Child, 16x12

 

This is one of the paintings that will be in the Power & Peace show in a couple of weeks.  It's also featured in the "Small-Scale Masterpieces" article in this month's issue of American Art Collector magazine, along with the landscape from the last post and a still life from another post.
Mother and Child, the universal and iconic image, does not lose its power with a Texas accent!  The women who came out west were of such strong stuff, but still so gentle.  I think mothers exemplify Power & Peace.  This tiny prairie girl is wearing a bonnet and boots with her flour sack dress, which her mother has bent down to adjust.  The tender moment is made strong for me by the clothing that the two are wearing.  The mother is dressed for riding, not darning, but you know she made the clothes that little girl is wearing.  The mothers of our own generation are equally able and versatile, strong and gentle: powerful purveyors of peace. 

Outdoor Painter Magazine

I wish there were a way to just give you the Outdoor Painter Magazine so you could see what the wonderful writer/editor Bob Bahr wrote up about my favorite place to paint.  I don't know how I would do that though so instead, I will post a link to his article along with a painting that was not actually included in the article but is linked to it in geography and spirit. 

 http://www.outdoorpainter.com/news/my-favorite-place-to-paint-kim-carlton.html


And here is the painting; it was one of three featured recently in a small works article in American Art Collector magazine (current issue, on the stands at this very moment!) called San Luis Pass, oil on linen, 9x12.  It will be available at the opening of my solo show at Cloisters Gallery in downtown Houston on 6 December from 6-8 pm on a special Small Works table:

Something Found

I made stuff up in my imagination about this woman as I painted her and when I was finished with the painting, I thought that it would be fun to write a story to go with her. 
My challenge was to fit the story into the little space beside the image that pops up on the website when you click on it: not a great deal of room!  So instead of a whole long story written out, I tried to allow a story to be created in your mind as you read a poem that gives some context to her and the tents and the thing she's picking up, while leaving much to your own imagination to fill in.  Here it is: 

Something Found

A Spanish lady, beauty so,
About her throat a cameo,
One sunny day the fairground went
She, looking for her beau.

Her treasure bound up in the sack
She’d sewn to hold all she could pack:
Her jewels and money, every cent,
So she could bring him back.

She thought she spied him over there,
His towering form and golden hair,
Yonder near the merchant’s tent,
Her lover oh so fair.

Her heart did throb, her breath abate;
She prayed that it was not too late.
Of everything she did repent;
Beloved, oh please wait!

But as she neared, it was not he
Her heart believed the man to be.
And now her fears and passions rent:
Her purse she could not see!

Retracing steps across the ground,
Her heart now raced and leapt and bound;
Could all be lost with nothing spent?
Ah praise! T’was lost, now found!

http://kimcarlton.blogspot.com/