Commissions are both fun and challenging. The fun is in working towards a piece that the recipient/buyer has a vision of, and the uncertainty of whether the outcome matches their expectations. That is also the challenge.
This most recent commission is out for review, and if it matches the buyer’s expectations…it will be headed north to a majestic New Hampshire lake house.
“Edgewater” 62 x 36 oil on canvas.
I live in a town designated as a “working farm” community, which like many places in New Hampshire, means you either live on a working farm, or (as is increasingly becoming the case), your house is built on what had once been a farm. Our house was built in what had been an old sheep meadow, and many of the newer neighborhoods contain the name “Farm”…as homage to the more pastoral setting they have replaced. A few miles from our house, at the top of Christian Hill, a stately farm still operates as it has for over a century. “Pastoral” 48 x 30.
At a recent show, a gallery visitor commented on one of my pieces, accurately surmising that my work is part reality, part imagination. It was interesting to hear, as I don’t really think much about my process. But the inspiration for a piece begins with encountering a scene that sparks interest, followed by a quick sketch of the elements of interest, and then beginning painting. Once the composition is roughed in (which is based largely on a real setting), other compositional elements, light and color are developed, largely from memory and/or imagined. In this recent piece, “Mystic” 30 x 24, the place is real, the barn is real (it’s just down the road), but much of everything else is somewhat enigmatic, and evolved as the piece was being painted.
All across the Cape, trees are dwarfed and shaped by the constant wind blown in from the Bay or the Sound. This piece, based on a scene in Dennis, on the Bay side, illustrates the affects to the landscape of the coastal prevailing winds.
The New England coastal landscape wouldn’t be complete without the rugged Rose Hips that grow wild on dunes and beaches, as well as in the more manicured gardens of year-round and summer-resident homes all across the Cape.
You can’t always be where you want to be. This Labor Day was spent mostly in Boston, moving my son back to college, and not where we ALL would have rather been…on the beach, on the Cape.
So, next best thing was to finish a piece begun on the very place we’d rather be…
“Last Day of Summer” 24 x 24.
I came across this scene recently, in Brewster, MA, just around mid afternoon. The huge old maples cast dramatic shadows on the barn’s facade and side, but brightly illuminated the roofs.
This piece, “Upland Blue” earned its title for the slight bluish tint visible on this old weathered barnboard on the grayish day I came across this place. With that hint of blue in mind, and the goal of amplifying that color in the finished piece, “Upland Blue” is neither literal, nor entirely imaginary, in it’s palette or composition. As with many pieces, it’s somewhere in between.
Driving East on Route 28, near the Harwich/Chatham line, I caught a glimpse of this old barn, tucked back down a long drive, and part of an old Cape Cod farm. Did a U-turn and drove down to capture a reference shot. Light and shadows on the Cape are a bit more dramatic, thanks, in part, to the constant Cape winds that keep trees from growing to their normal height. “Late Day” 40 x 30.
With Summer here, morning walks along the Cape Cod shore of Nantucket Sound provide no shortage of abstract contrasts of light and shadow, horizontal and vertical lines. While this piece was completed on a chilly, rainy day, it brings me back to that warm, sunny summer morning.
