Title: | Night Crawlers |
Inventory#: | NEILLH100296 |
Size: | 24" x 32" |
Frame Size: | 29" x 37" |
Medium: | Oil on Panel |
Price: | $16,800 |
A package arrived at the studio
unannounced.
Inside were some bits and pieces of foam
and a bunch of old wooden fishing lures.
Mr. Morse as muse
again.
Wicked cool.
I started to pull them out for closer inspection
but the darned things bit me.
Wicked sharp.
Figured I’d wait until it was time to play
so they sat boxed up for a few more months.
After a string of some serious painting
of fairly serious subjects
I was in need of levity and braved the hooked beasts.
What ensued was pure fantasy.
The academics have lately been revisiting a “genre” of art which goes back a bit
(references to its origin are vague), which they define as “Magical Realism”.
I’m still not sure how I feel about the label
but these lures surely brought a bit of magic into my studio.
The wonderful blue flashlight was a find at the Chilmark Antiques Fair
and it has been waiting for a feature role.
Every bit of the rest of it just…appeared.
Wicked fun.
Next Items Preview
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1958, Heather Neill moved frequently as a child, from California to the East Coast and back again. She majored in art at Connecticut College before landing first in Boston, MA, where she worked as a picture framer, and later remote Muddy Creek Forks, Pennsylvania. It was there she developed traditional woodworking skills and trained as a chair maker, using hand tools to fashion Shaker style ladder-back chairs.
During a lifetime of exploring art, Heather’s only formal training came during her college years. With her easel set up in each of the 26 places she’s lived, Heather continued to paint while working various odd jobs, including farm hand, bookbinder, vest maker, and stripper at a three woman printing company.
Heather’s work, rich in texture and detail, features equal parts still life, interiors and landscapes. Preferring to work from life, she collects items everywhere from antique shops and yard sales...to the woods behind her studio and brings them home to paint. From tea cups to doctor’s bags to firefighting helmets, the common threads are the stories that the objects, rooms or spaces in the paintings have to tell.
Painting full time since 2001, Heather now divides her time between Pennsylvania and Martha’s Vineyard, with her wife Pat, a hospice nurse, from whom she has learned that “life is short and far too precious to be doing something less than meaningful work.”
Check Out Heather's You Tube Channel for Painter's Notes and Artist's musings.
Artifacts Blog: Your in flying paint brushes