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One of my guilty pleasures the past few months has been playing an anagram game on my cell phone.  I am presented with a scramble of several letters and the goal is to form a crossword puzzle of words from them.  Not all of the possible words show up in the puzzle but even if not, I get an extra point for each one I find.  

I started doing this game as a way to keep an agile mind and vocabulary.  I continue to do it because its simply as fun as it is challenging.  Some puzzles come easy, some are surprisingly difficult, especially when I am fatigued.

I bring this up because I see a corollary between anagrams and artwork and contemporary life. 

In art I am faced with the same primary colors in my tubes of oil paint each time.  I often look at the same vistas, the same interiors, the same seasons throughout the year.  (I am not well traveled in even the best of circumstances.)  To be formulaic and paint the same painting or kind of painting repeatedly would be exceedingly dull.   The fun, the challenge of it all is to freefall into the moment and respond in a way that is authentic and exciting to me.  

I can't help but also think of our world situation right now.  All the pieces have been tossed up into the air and are tumbling down.  Its a moment to rearrange our lives, revamp the way we live with the natural world and with each other.  I'm hoping that collaboratively we choose a way that is kinder to our earth's soul and to each other's.

I was scheduled to have a solo show in August at Lebanon Picture Frame Fine Art Gallery.  Because of Covid-19 that got tossed up in the air of course, but it all came down in a wonderful new way.  I am now in a two person show with the talented Angela Lapioli whose own March solo show was cancelled.  I think our work will complement each other very well!  AND the show has been extended two months throughout August and September.  So we will have a double good time in all ways.  

I hope you have an opportunity to visit the gallery and see our new work.  I have pieces that are all sizes and shapes, colors and subjects.  In other words: lots of different ways of looking at familiar things.  

Be safe everyone!

love,

Jill Peckelun

www.jillpeckelun.com

There are times when I think of my paintings as a means to remember a time or place or person. They are like a photo album of my life.

When I was a child I spent a lot of time playing in the woods by our home. On the far side of a ravine filled with oaks there was a particular place where a cluster of pines flourished. They smelled so fragrantly. The earth beneath them was cushioned with soft warm brown pine needles. When we needed a place to go that was just a little bit secret, a little bit comforting...there was a welcome there.

So now, when I come upon a medley of pine trees somewhere I remember my younger days and feel the same ease of my spirit. Maybe all pine trees speak to each other in some way across the miles. I like to think that they remember me. I remember them.

As I write this the temperature is pretty hot out there. Think about cooling off under some pine trees...

Stay safe and well my friends,