New Artist Watch Feature at Escape Into Life

 

Hannah Stahl, Salma, 2019

Oil on Canvas 

(Commissioned Work)

20" x 16"

 

© Hannah Stahl

 

PLEASE DO NOT COPY IMAGE

 

With the "Dog Days" upon us, it's time for our annual "Dog Days of August" Artist Watch feature at the international online arts magazine Escape Into Life. So slow down, fix yourself a cool drink, and celebrate summer life with portraitist Hannah Stahl, whose oil paintings, commissioned by clients in the United States and around the world, are the subject of today's column.

Hannah, whose masterly and award-winning dog portraits have been honored widely in such publications as New England Monthly, The Providence Journal, and The Westminster Kennel Club "Dog Show Poster Competition" (2016), works out of her Brooklyn, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island, studios. She also creates cat portraits and, more recently, began painting portraits of humans. They all are stunning works executed with an Old Master technique.

For today's Artist Watch, Hannah provided a generous seven images of her dog portraits, an Artist Statement, and brief biographical information.

A Personal Note

Today's feature at Escape Into Life marks nine years of showcasing artists — emerging, mid-career, and established — from around the world. It also marks my last Artist Watch column for the magazine. Nearing age 70, though still without a bucket list, I know it's time to pass the virtual pen to a new editor.

 

As Artist Watch editor, I have given significant virtual room to artists who are women and artists who work in highly varied media. I owe a debt of gratitude to the many painters, sculptors, photographers, paper-cut artists, portraitists, installation artists, mixed media artists, collagists, illustrators, printmakers, and digital art wizards who accepted my invitations and generously shared their marvelous work. They made creation of my monthly Artist Watch columns a joyous endeavor and filled with beauty my days (and nights) of looking at art. Joy and beauty, especially as found in art, remain the two essential things I look for each day.

To my readers here and at Escape Into Life, which one day in 2013 gave me an unexpected opportunity to immerse myself in my long-held passion for art, I offer my thanks. To three of many special people at EIL — poetry editor, blog colleague, and friend Kathleen Kirk; Mandy Steinmetz, and EIL columnist Basel Al-Aswad, who has kept his son's vision alive — still more thank-yous and much appreciation. 

And to the new editor to be announced, may you enjoy as much as I have communicating with and meeting artists and writing the column. You will find it difficult to avoid purchasing their art for your personal collection.

 

While I do not post so often anymore at Writing Without Paper, I do plan to continue the blog's regular "Thought for the Day" feature and to share my writing when I'm moved to do so. I might yet have poems to write, and I am still creating art exhibitions for my parish in Arlington, Virginia, St. Michael's Episcopal Church. Look for news of those here and on social media.