“Cart Road”

New: “Cart Road” | 36 x 32 | oil/canvas

Our smallish New Hampshire town has successfully preserved the rural character that defines much of the state, especially much less populated northern town. When people not from New Hampshire learn you live in New Hampshire, you’re likely to be asked if you live near Mount Washington, or, do you know so-and-so, who lives in Portsmouth, or Keene (all three areas at least an hour’s drive from where we live). It’s a small state, but not so small that we all now each other.

Back when our roads were dirt and defined by the stone walls they passed between, New Hampshire must have felt even larger to those who lived here, as few rarely traveled more than a few miles from their farms. Many of those old farm roads can still be seen in our town, and many are the same roads we drive on today, though now paved.

One such road, just under a mile away, cuts through a preserved and maintained farmer’s meadow, and fades off into the woods that have grown where farmland has long gone unmaintained. Maples have grown along the stone wall that defines this old road, and the stones that make the wall remain as they were when hauled and stacked there over 100 years go. I pass this scene daily, at all times of day, and have recreated here it in “Cart Road.”