"Painting to Preserve" - The Chestnut Group Art Show and Sale at Montgomery Bell Academy, June 25-27, 2021

The Chestnut Group of plein air artists is celebrating our 20th year in 2021. We are having a show June 25-27 to celebrate. Each Chestnut member can contribute up to ten paintings for the show; plus we can donate one or more paintings to the show - which means the artist’s proceeds from the sale of those paintings go to The Chestnut Group. 

The show is at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville. The location is spectacular - such a beautiful building. There are 498 paintings hung on the walls. I found out yesterday that I will be working the table where people pay for the paintings they want on Friday night. I will get there early to be sure I know how to handle Square, etc. and keep all the records organized and straight.  

My insecurities as an artist have been overwhelming this week as I've seen the paintings other Chestnut members have submitted to the show. I keep telling myself that it doesn't matter - I'm still learning and growing. 

Here are the paintings of mine that will be in the show:

Early Spring from Murfrees Fork Bridge, oil on 14x11 panel. Murfrees Fork Bridge is on Carl Road in Williamson County, TN. I drive over that bridge at least a few times a week. We often see deer in the field on the left background of the painting, and there's often a log lying in the creek, although it wasn't visible on this day. The leaves were just coming out on the trees, and the field was brightly lit in the background.

Blue Bird Hill Shadows, oil on 12x16 panel. I took a class in plein air painting at Blue Bird Hill farm I Santa Fe, Tennessee. Anne Blair Brown and Trey Finney live there, although I did this painting when I was there for a workshop led by Kathie Odom. The shadows of the trees were beautiful on the grass.

Queen Anne's Lace and Hay Rolls, oil on 16x20 linen panel. This is a farm on Coleman Road in Franklin that I drive past daily. Throughout the year, it provides different scenes. Towards the end of the summer, all the hay rolls will be stacked next to the barn.  Early in spring the ground is covered with small yellow flowers. By the time June arrives, the Queen Anne's Lace, Thistles, and Clover are tall along the roadside which provided a wonderful foreground for this painting.

Wildflowers Above the Rock Wall, oil and cold wax medium on 5x7 panel. This is at the front of our property along Carl Road. I have painting it quite a few times over the years. This year we have the flowers much more "landscaped." This painting was done when the flowers were all intertwined and formed a fairly dense blanket of blooms above the rock wall.

Hay Rolls on Rolling Hills, oil on 8x16 panel. This scene is from Carters Creek Pike in Franklin.  I pass these fields daily. I love it when the hay rolls are fresh and strewn across the field. The field sold recently, and I wonder if there will be construction on the site in the future.

Tennessee Tranquility, oil on 11x14 linen panel. Bailey Road in near Leiper's Fork - a few streets over from where we live. They're building some houses in this area, and so I wanted to capture this scene before construction changes it forever.

Golden Fields of Franklin, oil on 16x20 linen panel. This is the same barn and field as in "Queen Anne's Lace and Hay Rolls" above. This was when the small yellow flowers were blooming and the field were filled with large patches of gold. I used a palette knife to do the yellow. I loved the look, and this is easily my favorite of my paintings in the show. I started this in a class taught by Dawn Whitelaw, and finished it at home. 

Along Tennessee Roadsides, oil on 11x14 linen panel. The Queen Anne's Lace, Clover, and Thistles along the roadsides during May/June/July each year fascinate me, They're "weeds" but the colors are so pretty, that I have taken probably 100+ photos of various scenes over the past couple years.  The Queen Anne's Lace is so dainty and intricate - I just love seeing it.

Bear Creek Road Reflections, oil on 12x24 linen panel. I was driving down Bear Creek Road a couple months ago and saw this barn with its reflection in the pond beside it. I literally stopped my car, rolled down the window and started taking photographs of it, Fortunately, it's a small country road and there were no other cars behind me at the time. Since then I've been back several times to see it in different lights.

Rock Wall Wildflowers, oil on 8x16 linen panel, donated painting. Another one of the wild flowers above the rock wall at the entrance to our property on Carl Road. This time the flowers were in smaller groups. This is one of my favorite scenes to paint.

Dogwoods in March, oil on 5 x 7 panel. We have a lot of natural dogwood trees on our farm; so we named it "Dogwood Trace Farm" in order to highlight the dogwoods along with the fact that we are so close to the Natchez Trace. We even planted more dogwood trees. Each year I enjoy and photograph the dogwood blooms. Most are white although we have a couple of pink dogwoods, too. 

The Chestnut Group's Christmas Party and Being Brave

I am in a women's group that is discussing Brene' Brown's book The Gifts of Imperfection.  It's a great group and a great book. It is a book I need to read many times until it becomes a part of me - being comfortable in my own skin and not getting hung up on trying to be perfect.  As a friend said recently, "We are recovering perfectionists!" A few weeks ago, in the Gifts of Imperfection group, we worked on creating a personal mantra. Each of us created a unique one. I thought through my goals, and I came up with "Be Brave. Be Real. Be Carol."  So what does Brene' Brown's book and a personal mantra have to do with the title of this post?

The Chestnut Group is a group of plein air painters. There are some amazing professional artists in the group. I have taken classes from many of them. However, any artist can join the group - beginners included. So two years ago I joined. The group sponsors workshops and does a lot of painting to support local parks and environmental projects. It's a good group! This Wednesday (tomorrow) evening, is the annual Christmas party. One thing they do at the Christmas party is each person can bring a small painting wrapped in brown paper. Then they have a drawing - each person that brings a painting gets a painting.

My dilemma is: Do I take a painting - one of my obvious "beginner" paintings and join in the drawing? That's actually the reason I didn't go to the party last year. I felt there was no way I could submit one of my paintings into the same drawing as those amazing artists I know. This year, however, I volunteered to setup for the party because I knew that if I volunteered to help I wouldn't back out of going. I had decided to not participate in the drawing. But then my friend, Sheryl - also a Chestnut - tried to convince me to participate. I said I would.  However, I don't have a painting suitable for the swap.  I want one I'm at least halfway proud of.  I like the "Three Kisses" painting I did in class Saturday - but it is done in oils and is still quite wet.  It won't be anywhere near dry by Wednesday.

So I decided yesterday to re-paint the Hershey Kisses with acrylics which dry within a few hours.  Here is that one:

I don't know. Just glancing at it, I like it - but looking at it closely, there is some unintended "texture" where the paint clumped up. I haven't used acrylics much at all in the past year and a half, and they REALLY dry quickly - well before I'm finished painting. 

However, I'm going to varnish it tomorrow, and I'm writing a poem that I'll print on a large adhesive sticker and put on the back of it - wrap it in brown paper and then BE BRAVE and follow through and take it to the party. That's where my mantra from the Brene' Brown group comes in. I've got to BE BRAVE. Really, even if the best artist in the group draws my painting, they can always toss it if they hate it - or paint over it - or give it away. I KNOW I'm a beginner, and everyone who contributes a painting to the drawing knows there are beginner painters in the group. I haven't varnished a painting yet, but my understanding is that it makes the painting look better - it evens out the finish. So I will update after the party and write how it went.

Update:  I finished the poem for the 3 Kisses painting.  I renamed it "A Kiss Bouquet."  Here's the poem - it's cheesy, (LOL!) but it's the best I could come up with in a very short period of time.

A Kiss Bouquet

A red kiss for love – alive, true, and strong

Hearts beating together – a vibrant love song

Silver is for time – a long life together

Standing solid – through storms and fair weather

A green kiss for change - renewing each day

Still familiar and warm – a “Kiss Bouquet”

I figure that even if a great artist gets my gift, they can always give it to someone they love as a gift.  Or . . . they can always toss it in the trash.

Update after the party:  So the party was a lot of fun. I met a lot of people and enjoyed chatting with other artists. And yes, one of the absolute BEST artists in the group got my painting in the drawing. Seriously, he's an artist that TEACHES a lot, has paintings in many galleries, and has won all kinds of awards. I looked at his website just now - and WOW!  AMAZING ART!  LOL!  So Jim Himsworth - "Portrait Painter and Fine Artist" now owns my "A Kiss Bouquet" painting. WHY couldn't a beginning painter have gotten my painting?!?!??!!! I really envisioned a woman getting the painting - and I had a woman in mind when I wrote the poem - thinking a woman would appreciate the playful nature of painting 3 Hershey Kisses - and then the sentimental type poem.

And I wonder why that bothers me so much. I hate to think that whoever got my painting was disappointed to have gotten a beginner's painting. I have no idea how Jim feels - I'm sure he would say that he really likes it - but I can't imagine that he would do anything with it other than toss it in a corner or in the trash.

So I need to quit obsessing about the fact that a fantastic, experienced and nationally recognized artist got my painting. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go. It is OKAY to not be perfect. It is OKAY to be a beginner painter. I participated in the painting exchange, and that was my goal.

Here's the painting I got in the drawing.  It's pretty.  I took a class on "painting each day" - and one of the things we did was a series of quick paintings of a vase of flowers.  The teacher recommended we use specific boards. I'm almost certain this painting was done in that class because it looks so much like the stack of paintings I have in my studio that I did in that class - and it's painted on the exact same brand/size/type of board that we used in that class.  

I love it.  I had the hardest time with those flowers, but this artist, Claudia Williams, really nailed it.  She was able to paint the flowers with only a few strokes.  We had to do a 40-stroke painting in that class - and maybe this is her 40-stroke painting.  It looks like it could be.

Despite my insecurities about my Kisses painting, I really enjoyed the party, and I will participate again next year.  I will do my painting ahead of time next year and have a nice little landscape to put in the drawing.

Updated 1/30/2019: I mentioned above that I needed to "Let it go!" And time has helped me to do just that. I needed a day or two after the party to get over my "OMG! A great artist got my painting!" angst. Now it really doesn't matter to me. I will definitely participate next year.