Besides all the usual activity going on - I just got confirmation and dates for the big Holiday Craft Fair here in Provincetown. Which means lots of ordering and administration to do to prepare. Later today I plan to buy a new, much needed granny cart, I've already ordered more mugs, greeting cards and giclees. I also spent the morning working on my online store and it's finally open - check it out. https://maureenmccarron.com/shop

Okay, back to work - Onward!

 This is Claudia, finally. I originally planned to do a cardinal for a holiday card, but decided to make it a yellow female instead. In theory, I could reverse the image and paint it red to make the card with and I still might, but now I'm painting a scarlet tanager. That's a red bird, it could work. Also, I'm now listed in the Paris Collage Collective Registry as well as having a profile on the Creative Ground website, along with updating my own website and Saatchi account. That's a lot of admin work this week on top of cleaning house, my job, doing an expense report for my accountant, applying for a spot in a craft fair in town, and oh yeah, making art. Got a little crazy today thinking I needed to order more frames, giclees and greeting cards without knowing if I'll get a booth at the craft fair yet. So, I didn't order any of it. What I did get though was a couple of Arches Watercolor blocks in 12x12", my preferred size at the moment - one in Cold Press for painting and one in Hot Press for drawing. I'm supposed to be making art, right?

Since I enjoyed posting about one of my CoVid collages last week, here's another. It's titled Swallows and has 5 elements in it - the artist, the window frame and desk, the landscape, the two swallows, and Whistler's Fireworks, which I xeroxed in black and white, cut up and then rearranged to create the background foundation to the rest of the piece.

I've been thinking about the lockdown because I just got vaccinated again and as usual, it knocked me flat. This time it was the Moderna version and as bad as I felt, it was not nearly as bad a reaction as what I've had in the past to Pfizer's. Was this the 6th or 7th? I can't remember, but that's a lot of shots to have for one thing in only a couple of years.

Known primarily for the bird portraits, I also do analog collage that incorporates birds into the imagery. Both approaches can be provocative and unworldly but each exists between mystery and fantasy in their innate if elusive narrative. This piece, titled Aria, is one of my favorites. And like most of the bird portraits, it has a gilded background.

Ah, winter's on the way - I feel an episode of collage making coming.