First Star – Holiday Greeting Card

Antique Sleigh and Snowy Owl

This is a beautifully mysterious image to send at any time of year, and it’s particularly evocative of the spirit of Solstice, Christmas….really all the winter holy days.  Perfect for bird lovers as well as the Snowy Owl flies silently through the dusk sky, in front of a stunning winter sunset.  Is the sleigh Santa’s?  Or does it belong to a farmer in 1850?  Or will a party of the fair folk drive it to a revel later in the night?  We’ll never know

Snowy Owls in Maine

Once a snowy owl flew right over the head of my husband, Christopher Cart, on Wood Island at Popham Beach in January.  Apparently, Maine is about as far south as snowy owls ever come, and they are only here from around December to March – the rest of the year they return north to the arctic tundra.  Like all owls, their flight is silent.  Their plumage can be all white, or quite covered with beautiful dark markings.  Look for them in open fields or along the coast.

Jen Greta Cart’s Original Painting, “First Star”

Inspired, as so many of my paintings are, by the spiritual magic of the evening sky over the woods by Hallowell, Maine, it was completed in the dark days before solstice of December 2023.