December 2025

Humility & Gratitude

Happy holidays!

There’s a feeling of humility and gratitude in the air this time of year. It saturates the atmosphere and makes complete strangers smile at each other. Personally, I’m much more inclined to overlook someone taking my parking space. Or waiting in long lines to check out. Actually, I like the crowds. :D

‘Tis the season of reverence, of sacredness, of inter-connectedness, of things greater than ourselves. Regardless of how you are celebrating or worshipping (or not), I echo the angel chorus: Peace on earth, good will to all.

Warmly,

Rachel (feeling connected)

p.s. This is my 10th newsletter. My goal was twelve. So I get an 83%. A solid B!

In the Studio:

Still working on commissions, but starting a new body of work, too! Here’s the first piece:

SHOW SCHEDULE

DECEMBER

Winter Members Show, Portland Art Museum's Rental Sales Gallery, Portland, Oregon.

Holiday Show, Columbia Art Gallery, Hood River, Oregon.

Please patronize these galleries:
Art on Oak, & Stave & Stone Winery in Hood River, OR; PAM's Rental Sales Gallery in Portland, OR. Check them out! 

It Came Upon The Midnight Clear

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold;
"Peace on the earth, good will to men
From heaven's all-gracious King" –
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel-sounds
The blessed angels sing.

But with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring; –
Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!

And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing; –
Oh, rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing!

For lo! the days are hastening on
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When Peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

-Edmund Sears

ABOUT MY NEWSLETTER

New pieces, works in progress, notifications of art shows and other happenings, insights into my artistic process and always, some philosophical ramblings thrown in for free. Unlike myself, my art has no façade, no pretense, no anxiety, no insecurity. My work is always, and completely, reverent, sincere, earnest, transparent. It represents me at my best.