Title: | Artifacts |
Inventory#: | NE000122 |
Size: | 20" x 24" |
Frame Size: | 25" x 29" |
Medium: | Oil on Panel |
Price: | $19,500 |
If you peer in closely
through the blue doorway
and into the pantry
you will see shelves
lined with artifacts.
Treasures unearthed
and discovered behind walls
an old clay pipe
horseshoes and coins
bottles and bricks.
What you won’t see
that I can
is Katie in there
studying them.
She was the navigator
on the day I first saw this place.
I mentioned before
about our wild adventure
on the bouncy bouncy dirt lane
as we searched the wilderness
getting closer and closer
to the isolated homestead.
At one point…
I think it was seeing giant spider webs
glistening with heavy dew
under that medieval forest
of low branching oaks…
at a moment
when we were particularly lost
that we both looked at each other
to gauge the fear factor.
Yep it was creepy.
But, as ever with Katie,
so much fun.
Her young strong legs
climbed the stairs before me
to test if they would hold
and her brave confident self
looked behind
the darkest of dusty corners
to spare my heart.
She’s the one
who opened the lid
on the oval roaster
and found the shells
then played apprentice
moving them in and out
of the crawling sunlight.
It’s going to be harder now
to coordinate our Ted Trips
because she went
and grew all up and graduated
and is going to step right on out
into the big wide world any day now
all by herself.
I have a feeling though
that there will be a few more adventures
a painted cormorant now and then
a little bit of knitting together
and listening
and the occasional snapshot
of that dimply smile.
Look out world
here comes a damned fine human
…love ya kiddo.
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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.
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