Michelle (Basic) Hendry - Fine Art

Happy Easter & More on the Church

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Small Painting
Early Spring Twilight, 5×7 © 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry

I missed last week’s small painting post due to my trip to Toronto, so I am finally getting back on track…! I have been a little under the weather this week and the spring storm that dropped a foot of snow on our mostly melted lawn was no help!

I have been continuing to follow up on the Uffington Church and contacting as many people as I can find to see how to prevent this from happening again. Thanks to the Muskoka Heritage Foundation, I discovered that the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario has a Muskoka chapter.  I was vaguely aware of their existence due to their operation of the Door’s Open program up here, but I had seen little else. I look forward to getting to know the members and seeing if there is more that can be done to protect buildings at risk on the fringes of the region. I have also gotten myself a casual invite to the Gravenhurst Heritage Committee’s meeting next week. They are a brand new committee and it may be some time before the wheels hit the ground, so to speak.

Along that line, I have had “Evanescence” professionally photographed by Paul Bennett up in Raymond and I am preparing to have prints made. When I can figure out which organization is in the best position to use funds for active preservation, I intend to license that group to sell giclée prints for that purpose. I will donate 100% of the profits, which could be up to $4000 or more, to go directly to preservation efforts. With the economy in the state that it is in, and my family having been so directly affected by the downturn with so many others, I know fundraising will be difficult. I am hoping that someone will take me up on this before another building slips away unnecessarily.

As for the original painting, I am looking forward to saving just a bit of the wood from the Church to frame it.

Uffington Church Painting
Evanescence, St. Paul’s Uffington, 16×24 © 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry

In the meantime, I reflect on my last visit to that place – being torn down as we speak. I can hear the sound of echoing creaks in the floorboards, and nothing else but peaceful, gentle, silence…

Happy Easter, everyone…

Getting Through It All….

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Spring Barn
Needing a little Spring (this week’s Small Painting) 5×7, acrylic © 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry

This has been a rough week – on many levels… loss, sadness, and small difficulties. To top it off, March is a lot tougher up here than in the City because we are in Winter that extra two weeks. I grit my teeth knowing it will soon pass…

Rama House
Found a new one in elegant decay…. © 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry

One of my favourite things is my occasional tours of places that are important to me – places that in some way have touched my Spirit. Many are natural, some are old buildings. These trips are usually my ‘pick me up’. I can go to my ‘sacred places’ and recharge.

It seems that every year or so, I lose another one of those places. Some are lost to yet another development, some are simply abused. I was checking a place today that I found last year. I discovered, accidentally, the deep healing effect that it had on me. Something seemed strange about it today, and looking closer, broke my heart. Finding this place desecrated was like salt in the wound of a less than pleasant week. When I have more information, I will share it. I am hopeful that it is not what I think. Let’s just say for now, that I can barely speak about it…. (there are no images until I have more info…)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a lighter note – and up is the only way we can go now – I went for a short hike at Mara on Lake Simcoe. There was this happy little red squirrel noisily eating away, totally unfazed by me or the dog that came to visit…

Red Squirrel
Munching Squirrel © 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry

A couple more from the east side of Lake Simcoe….

Simcoe
On the Lake – Simcoe © 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry

Simcoe
On the Lake – Simcoe © 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry

Deep breath….. And a quote for the week:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference…  ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

Hopewell & the Big Launch

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Hopewell, New Brunswick
Hopewell, New Brunswick, 24×12 © 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry
(Want to see a larger image? Click here)

The Artscapes Website has been renovated and the first small painting has been posted to the Small Paintings Blog!

So here’s what has been accomplished since setting my 2009 Goals – I am implementing the first half of my marketing plan – I have improved my website and created a blog that will help me move my brush more, offering much more for my readers to see and a chance to buy small paintings at a special rate on-line.

On the Artscapes Website:

• The website has been fully renovated using CSS – getting rid of all the soon to be obsolete HTML tags
• My Bio has been rewritten
• There are Links to local artist and friends, galleries and other interesting things (this section will evolve a fair bit this year)
• There is a News page that will list everything that is new so people can save time and go directly to the things they have not seen
• The Paintings page has been divided into the categories of:

  • landscape
  • rural architecture
  • new work
  • small paintings
  • art cards and prints (the art cards and prints are in the works for later this month – what would you like to see?)

• The Small Paintings section of the Paintings Gallery include on-line purchasing with PayPal for paintings under 8×10
• The Hopewell painting above is now on the home page

The Small Paintings Blog
This new blog is for the sole purpose of showing original small paintings and sketches under 8×10 and for sale on-line. These paintings are unframed, on canvas board or hard board and are available for under $95US. New paintings will be posted every Saturday. The first one is up today! Until March 7th, shipping will be included in the painting price to Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and some of Europe.

There is an e-mail subscription available to the Small Paintings Blog. Click here to see the first painting.

You can also follow my work:
On Twitter:
http://twitter.com/Artscapes

On Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26545566@N05/

On Facebook:
Look up Michelle Basic Hendry!

Enough of that – now I have a question for all of you – What paintings would you like to see as prints or greeting cards? Do you have a favourite? Is there something you would like to see or to know that I have not included? Your feedback is important to me!

Thank you so much for visiting – my friends and my new friends. There is no reason the make art if not to bring as much pleasure to as many as possible!

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All text and images © 2001-2018 Michelle Hendry. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission is strictly prohibited.