From then on I would spend the weekends out on the winding, back country roads and drink in the farm fields and river valleys surrounded by hillsides blanketed with rich color. The air, filled with the competing scents of just tilled earth and decaying wet leaves, would blast through my hair and all my troubles would jump out and be taken away. I was home out there in the farms and hills. They were my refuge. My solace. They seemed to represent permanence and gave me a sense of history needed in a young and quickly passing life. Even the old decaying ones half hidden in the overgrown fields spoke to me.
Now I find myself back out there...maybe for much the same reasons but in a more practical convertible, though she's still fun on the corners. And in the studio I always lean towards painting farms and find I am wanting to paint her barns, too. And apples. And old farm machinery. Things that are red. Old. Leaning. And in so doing I am peeling back layers of memories I forgot I had. And from this is coming a turn in my work. It teaches me that when you have a strong passion for your subject matter it will show through in your work. I'm not sure you can properly capture its soul if you haven't really spent time living in their shadows.
I am excited to be on this journey and to see where these new open roads will take me and as always remember to spend time feeding your creative passions, too. It is the only way to truly live. Brush on!
I am excited to be on this journey and to see where these new open roads will take me and as always remember to spend time feeding your creative passions, too. It is the only way to truly live. Brush on!