Everyone who has the notion to paint outside--to pick up the brush and box and paint the world outside of us, all around us--is a particular kind of person. It's not for everyone--with the bugs and the sun and the heat. But if you've got the bug, you know it. It's a call to stand outside and witness the movement of the sun across the sky. To feel the earth under our feet. And to navigate the palette of greens and cool blues that balance to create harmony in our compositions. It's a flow that it takes time to sink into. To develop a rhythm for. I haven't been out in it as much as I would have liked over the years. More years hitting the keys on the laptop than feeling the sun on my face. But I love to track artists who have gone all in.

For twentieth century artist Walter Anderson, nature was his muse, his home, and his spirituality. His aesthetic flowed through watercolors, sculptures, and murals, and his love of the endless bounty of natural world and its rhythms is visible in every work. Even, one might say, as a work of prayer.

New Orleans Academy founder Auseklis Ozols brought the plein air tradition into my life--trained a generation of us to stand outside, compose, measure, draw, and paint. But really, to marvel in the great beauty before us. And to paint as a gesture of great humility and honor to our Creator.  As we said goodbye to him this week, with the ritual of music, community, humor, and gratitude, we feel his energy as fuel to keep us going. As we marvel at what a lifetime of wonder and worship and humility can produce, we get to keep seeing it in the works in the Ozols Collection and be inspired in our own artistic production.

So I've got my copy of "Approaching the Magic Hour" by Agnes Grinstead Anderson. I'm ready to jump into my rowboat and visit Horn Island in the world of my imagination and see it through his eyes. Walter Inglis Anderson was born at the dawn of the twentieth century (1903) and died in 1965. Ozols was a man of twenty three when Anderson died, and his connection to Ocean Springs runs deep.  Let's receive the works of these two greats as a thread of history that connects us all together through time, hands it from one to the next, in the great march of time.

Book club meets by online call Tuesday October 28, 2025. Let me know if you'd like to join an online call to discuss (meeting via Google Meet).  

Book Club (Online)
Tuesday, October 28 · 7:00 – 8:00pm

In this series of paintings, I decided to focus on the amazing life of downtown New Orleans, which includes a vibrant music scene and the historic and bohemian neighborhoods of Marigny (where I live) and Bywater.

In my heart of hearts I am a portrait artist. So I decided to feature a portrait of local blues guitarist Little Freddie King, much beloved as our resident bluesman of B.J.'s bar in Bywater. Little Freddie takes us into his Mississippi blues sound and struts and clucks his way through a rocking set--you feel like you a traveling through time. With his bright clothes on his slight frame, he lights up the stage with his energy, his songs, and warm heart. I had to picture him with this purple jacket on, because why not purple plaid with red pants?!

Canvas Print of Original Fine Art Oil Painting "Little Freddie King" by Sarah Griffin Thibodeaux
Giclee - Canvas Prints | 20 x 30" Artisan Archival Canvas | Streteched Mounted - Image Wraps - 1.5" Deep

$450