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Hello friends. The June light has been waking me early, despite the blackout shades, but I don’t mind. When I look out on the morning, there are deer in the front meadow, or sometimes a bobcat, grooming and purring in the sun.
We often go out before breakfast, choosing a wooded or waterfront trail. I’ve “found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,” ephemerally blooming and fading in just a week, and now the lady slippers are starting to open as well.
📸: Pink Lady Slipper, Hundred Acre Woods, Brooklin ME.
In the studio, I’ve kept painting. In addition to the Fallen Sky series (see the Inky from March) and some ripening abstracts, I’ve started another series I’m calling Glacial Erratics—named after the boulders deposited all throughout Maine thousands of years ago, as vast hunks of ice slid slowly across the earth. Reading up on them, I collect phrases like gray-weathering, muscovite-bearing, biotite granite. Or conintental rift assemblage, thick pillowed greenstones, and feldspathic schist. TI’ve become a little obsessed with rocks since I moved to Maine, I guess. They’ve shown up in woodcuts, drawings, paintings over and over. The Glacial Erratics paintings I’ve done so far are small—12 x 9—but I’d like to go much bigger—exploring more of the textures, patterns, and colors, and the feeling that that are gifts from elsewhere, upheaved and strewn, but resilient. Grounding. Inevitable.
📸: Some glacial erratics in Acadia
📸: Glacial Erratics 1, detail.
I’m due for my walk this morning, but before I let you go, an invitation.
Dreaming at Dawn is an exhibition being produced by the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA), and I’m coordinating the show with Sally Stanton. Peter Walls is our juror. The deadline is this Sunday, June 7. If you find the theme inspiring, please send us something?
The call for art is open to all UMVA artists—and you can join us now if you’re not already a member. There are never any submission fees for UMVA’s shows—the union’s policy since 1975.) Details here.
What are you up to? Write me a few lines. I’ll write you back.
Shanna
PS: I’ve never used generative AI in my life, not even once for fun, and I wouldn’t dream of letting it come between us here. All the words and thoughts in INKY are my own, especially the typos, except where I am quoting. ❤️ Copyright (C) 2026 INKY. All rights reserved.