I had been struggling with a title for this piece. Was it the trees or the ridgeline in the background that was the subject…and that could help inspire a title?
The perfect name came while having a great discussion with interior designer Amy Mitchell for her online design journal, “The Saturday Blog” in which my work was featured this morning. During that conversation, she remarked that my work captures the light during that time of day she refers to as “the yellow hour”…that brief time of early morning and just before dusk.
A perfect description for what I was looking for, so… “The Yellow Hour” 36 x 36. Thanks Amy!
I’m excited to share a new venue, Prospect Hill Home, a new home decor and art gallery location right on Lake Sunapee Harbor, in Sunapee NH. This beautiful new space is resulted from the efforts of the great people at Prospect Hill Antiques in George’s Mills, and provides significant wall space and great lighting, within a home decor setting.
If you’re in the Sunapee/Dartmouth region, both Prospect Hill Locations are well worth visiting.
Click here for the Prospect Hill website.
A second piece in a series of works based on a huge old barn in Chester, VT, focuses on the shaded side, where the inclination is to avoid color, as shade seems to, in reality, remove color. But there is color in shadow. It just needs to be imagined and made more luminous. “Luminance” 40 x 30 o/c.
This time of year, up here in New Hampshire, counting the weeks and days until Summer is pretty commonplace. In preparation for warmer times, and upcoming Summer shows on the Cape, the finishing touches were recently given “Midsummer Light” 48 x 36.
I had the pleasure of delivering and installing a painting to buyers in Stowe, VT, who have recently completed construction on a beautiful mountainside house overlooking Mt. Mansfield.
My galleries often work with designers on corporate and residential interiors projects, and often times, a work of art is selected as the starting point of the project…from which many color choices (fabric and paint) are made.
This piece, “Sunblocked”, a recently completed 48 x 48, was identified by the buyers as the perfect piece to serve as the starting point of the interior plan for their new ski-country home.
I’m generally not a quotes person, but a poster in one of my college’s studios has always stuck with me over the years. It was a painting by Matisse, and his quote: “Look at life with the eyes of a child.”
While I’m a few good decades past from my childhood, there is something to be said for looking at things from a less analytical, or adult, perspective. I thought about that quote as I worked on “East Hill” 40 x 30, as there were so many things in the scene that my grown-up mind wanted to leave in…simply because they were there. For me, a composition is more about what’s left out, and what’s changed, than what is actually there.
As often happens, while traveling the back roads of rural New England, a quick glimpse of scene prompts a pullover, u-turn and quick reference shot. In this case, while heading through a small, rural Massachusetts town, the sun hit the overgrown meadow grass in the raised area at the vortex of these three structures. That blast of light was what captured my attention, though in developing the composition, the convergence of these three barn buildings became more interesting as a backdrop. “Westford Sun” 24 x 24, oil on canvas.
Wrapping up in the studio the latest commission, based on an often-painted location just down the road. Similar in composition to another piece of the same scene, I pushed the focal point of this piece to the op, allowing the lower half to the shadows cast by the treeline on the west side of the meadow, so much so they sort of compete for “subject” status. “Western Ridge” 48 x 48.
I worked with a couple from Vermont on this piece…very few requests for the composition, other than to include in the background some reference to Camel’s Hump Mountain in Huntington, VT, as they live not far from this location. Recollecting the dramatic lighting of the Green Mountains, when I lived for a short time in Warren, Vermont, the sunlit slope of the mountain sort of echos the sunlit side of the barn. The result, “Norther Peaks.”
