Here I am in Johnson, Vermont already in the second week of an artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center. The trip up from Austin, Texas was fantastic, stopped in many states, Arkansas, North Carolina and Virginia along the way here. Spent some time with many old friends and family. I have been filming and taking photos in all locations.

The problem has been that the residency is so wonderful, that I haven't wanted to spend the time blogging. Instead, I am devoting as much time as possible to making work and filming. The center gives you all your meals, a room and studio. There are many wonderful writers and artists to meet here, so the mix is really energizing.

The poet, Carol Frost was here in the first part. Check out her poetry if you haven't read her yet. She has a very powerful connection to the natural world and her poems sing. I purchased her book, "The Queen's Desertion" and I have been reading and rereading it every night in the studio.

There are readings from the poets one night a week and last night we had open studios where we got to see what the artists are working on. The town of Johnson is small but it has all the basics stores along with a wonderful independent bookstore, restaurants, performing music spot, coffee shop/cafe and a small college.

The weather has been rainy from time to time with some nice warm sunny days. Walking here is marvelous and a river runs right through the middle of town. I did do a visit to Burlington yesterday, nice town. Hopefully, I will have the chance to take a short day trip to a higher evaluation and do some plein-aire painting.

In the mean time, I will post some more photos and paintings perhaps later. I don't want to interrupt too much of the time here! When I leave here I will be heading for New York State before heading back to Illinois.

More Work/March

March 4th

My Mother's Birthday was yesterday, March 4. She died this past November a few days before Thanksgiving. The photo is a shot of my Austin studio window with my ancestor altar for Mom.

My Mom was the deepest influence in my life as an artist and she taught me that art can transform grief to joy.

My brother, Gill Giese, teaches viniculture at Surry Community College in North Carolina. The day my mom died his students harvested grapes and created a Rose named in my Mom's honor. I designed the label. I want thank my brother for asking me to help with the label design and I look forward to raising a glass with him and my sister-in-law Kelly in Mom's memory.

Back from Big Bend

We just returned from the "Big Bend" trip.

It was a great experience and I will post some images in a few days.

I can't wait to get back to the studio to do more work.

My diary descriptions will be posted on the Trip Diary page to

the right.

Paintings 2/13/2010

More New Work 2/2010

New Paintings 2/2010

Rainy Days

It has been raining and quite cold here,so I haven't made any road trips this week.
I have been in the studio and have 6 more paintings in different stages of progress. Hope
to post more images in a few days.

New Work

Here are some new images I have been working on. These are all watercolors 20"X 26".