NIGHT GALLERY

NIGHT GALLERY on Etsy Original Painting

Rod Serling's Night Gallery, The Art of Darkness. Back in the late 1960s, one of my favorite shows I loved watching was Night Gallery. Rod Serling would start the show by presenting each horror tale in a painting he had in an Art Gallery. Artist Thomas J. Wright was the artist behind all of the spooky artwork. Rod Serling would introduce each story of every episode with one of Wright's eerie paintings. The Cemetery was one of my very favorites. I painted over a painting I did some time ago inspired by Night Gallery's The Cemetery. Adding Florence the Ghost and Bat to The Cemetery just seemed perfectly haunting. This Original Painting, Night Gallery will soon be available on Etsy. Mixed Media ORIGINAL PAINTING "Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost ♥️ Annabelle & M ♥️ © 2023
a Mixed Media ORIGINAL PAINTING
"Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost
♥️ Annabelle & M ♥️
© 2023 @batandmaggie

VISITING THE ANCESTORS

 Florence and Bat went on a little trip to Genova, Italy, to visit Florence's family at Cimitero di Staglieno: one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world. 

When I was little, my aunt Virgina brought me to a beautiful garden. I remember the air being hot, dry, and infused with the smell of pine. We wandered through a maze of mysterious sculptured figures and monuments so elaborate in intricate detail, so life-like, I was sure the people were alive under the dusty marble facades. We were visiting our ancestors. The garden was a cemetery, and it was gorgeous. Ghosts of the past are here in their final resting place. And what a beautiful place to be in death. Cimitero Monumental di Staglieno; haunting and so beautiful. I was never to forget it. 

Below is an excerpt of what the American writer Mark Twain said after visiting Staglieno :

 “Our last sight was the cemetery (a burial place intended to accommodate 60,000 bodies), and we shall continue to remember it after we shall have forgotten the palaces. It is a vast marble colonnaded corridor extending around a great unoccupied square of ground; its broad floor is marble, and on every slab is an inscription - for every slab covers a corpse. On either side, as one walks down the middle of the passage, are monuments, tombs, and sculptured figures that are exquisitely wrought and are full of grace and beauty. They are new and snowy; every outline is perfect, every feature guiltless of mutilation, flaw, or blemish; and therefore, to us these far-reaching ranks of bewitching forms are a hundred fold more lovely than the damaged and dingy statuary they have saved from the wreck of ancient art and set up in the galleries of Paris for the worship of the world." 

"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." 

GENOA: Stunning sculptures 🏛️, Monumental Cemetery (Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno)

@batandmaggie @hauntedwalk @rideau_walkingtours @harpercollinsch@ottawabloggers #art #artgallery#ghost #bookstagram #book #booklover #catart #story #instagram #instagood#instadaily #insta #cimiteromonumentale#cimitero#cemetery #halloween #grave #beautiful #haunting

"MAPLE SPIRIT " -The bLUE aRTIST, A Moon, and Cloud Study, and Then Inspiration Strikes!

"MAPLE SPIRIT " 

The Blue Artist - I'm afraid I haven't grasped hold of color mixing skills, or, for that matter, painting clouds, water, trees or the flowers, the birds and the bees, cats and dogs, just about everything there is to paint, but that's ok, part of the journey is learning the art.
A few weeks ago, I went for a country drive along the Rideau River to look for pussy willows. I make it a habit to take a particular route home passing through Burritts Rapids, a tiny hamlet I love. Right before I turned onto county road 2, I noticed a few of the maple trees at Christ Church had buckets placed on them to collect maple syrup. Not wanting my coffee to get any colder since I had already left it earlier while picking the pussy willows I found, I opted to skip taking their photo. It was only yesterday I told my husband and daughter of the maple trees at the church.
Stan chuckled at the thought of collecting maple syrup from maple trees surrounding the church. He asked me, " Is that the same church with the cemetery at the back where we went for a walk last year"?
"Well, he had the name already picked out, and my daughter, the picture in her mind; I just had to paint it.
"Maple Spirit"; sort of sounds like a brand of maple syrup. Don't you think? And so, the moon and cloud study I was working on got a landscape below. Love how inspiration strikes.

DORMIR SOUS UN CYPRES

"Dormir sous un cyprès, or “to sleep under a cypress” means to be dead."


OIL ON WOOD WIP

I left it for dead.

When I was inspired to paint The Quiet Garden, it was after I had come upon a beautiful garden behind The Saint John the Baptist Anglican Church in Richmond, Ontario, next to the church graveyard. But, I failed in capturing the serene landscape of The Quiet Garden and tossed the painting into the woodpile.
Sometimes, what I have in mind does not always turn out the way I conceive it in my mind. Now, I have arrived where the road leads to though not so sure how to go on. I will need to give it some thought before I make my next brush stroke.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;


Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,


And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.


I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


~Robert Frost

THE QUIET GARDEN ~ OIL PAINTING ON WOOD PLANK WIP 🖼

Abandoned and forgotten, this painting I started in April may yet see life.
I almost burned it on a few bonfire nights but, it somehow escaped.
And then, looking at the rough sketches of the painting, I took another look at the wood plank and was intrigued by the light and shading of the colors breaking through the Cyprus trees. I think it might be worth my time to finish what I started.

The Quiet Garden ~ Oil on wood plank WIP 🖼

Where did I get the inspiration for this painting? 

The Quiet Garden at The Saint John the Baptist Anglican Church in Richmond, Ontario.

 In times past, when my daughter was in school, Grace, our golden and I would go to Richmond, take a long walk in the park by the river until M finished her class.

Then, one day, Grace and I came across The Quiet Garden next to a beautiful cemetery behind the Anglican church.
The garden became our special place to retreat to after a long walk, Grace and I taking a little rest before picking up M.
These days, I don't go there often, but when I do, I see the golden girl sitting next to me by the garden bench. 😢🦮


"Today" ~ Mary Oliver


Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.
The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.
But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.
Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.

~Where Have You Gone To My Lovely~

Enduring love, originally uploaded by IrenaS.

Where have you gone to…. my lovely
So far and away from the world?
Is it not so
Your beauty and youth
Were just beginning to gently unfurl

The trees that surround you
Tell the story so well
Shed of their leaves from sorrow so vast
Stand naked and dark against a fading sky of golden glass

Space… oh so still and serene
A park of unbroken love and broken dreams
Affirmed by the monuments that
Stand silent and so strikingly seen

I quietly walk past the stones
That rise from the depths of the earth
And look for the one that
Lies on the bed made of marble and stone
With a heart in the folds of her dress

I stand here above you
In this forest that travels to no infinity's end
and place my cold kiss upon your head


Always have loved you
From the dawn of your birth
To the dusk of your death
Now even more
In this everlasting still life that’s been tenderly cast

~Annabelle~


N.B. I didn't forget to complete "The Secret Door". I only got side tracked....couldn't help it. I have such any easier time writing about melancholy glum.It obviously helps a tad in writing these sad words when I’ve been terribly sick and unable to even get out of bed. In waves of sickness I tried to post yesterday and read my fav blogs but to no avail; not to mention I was having trouble remembering passwords. The long two day sleep helped lots and my husband was summoned to come home early. My son ended up taking the day off school to take care of me and the dog so in all everything combined helped in my recovering a little sooner that I anticipated; still not so well thou .Next .... “ The Secret Door”.