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.”
There was something about the space between these two buildings that appealed to me, a years ago when I first encountered this location in the Monadnocks of New Hampshire. It wasn’t until recently, while drawing the scene, that it became obvious it was the trees between and behind, that seemed to connect the farmhouse and the barn. “Birch Stand” 48 x 24, oil on canvas.
I’m not anti Winter, nor am I anti snow…but waking up to 6 inches of white in the yard…a week ahead of Thanksgiving, got me thinking–prematurely by many weeks–of Spring. So, good day to finish “Spring” 12 x 12.
Rural areas of New England, or anywhere, maintain a visual link to the past, when the world (we assume) was simpler. Encountering a scene of an old barn, still standing in a field or meadow since it’s construction many decades ago, I’m convinced life was simpler. Maybe not easier, but simpler… “Halcyon” 42 x 30.
This setting is not far from my home, midway up the long, steep hill connecting Milford, NH to Mont Vernon. The old barn was built on the downslope, with footings to compensate for the decreased grade.
On a recent trip to Vermont, heading South from Woodstock to Chester, I came across this scene on Rt 103.The trees, which were likely not there, or just saplings, when the barn was first built, now almost shrouded it, the structure visible only by the annual mowing of the field in which it has sat for decades.
