Having worked with galleries and interior designers on projects where a room either needs a painting to serve as the starting point, or is finished by selecting the right piece to put a finishing touch on the job, it’s always nice to see outcome. And designers’ (either professional or the homeowner themselves) approach to these projects is highly individual, based on personal aesthetic preferences.
This piece, “Cavendish Barn” 48 x 36, was shipped to a residential buyer recently to finish the redesign of the family room in their new house. Interior and architectural design, like art, can either be practiced by following predefined rules, by designing around color theories and design principles, or it can be more free form and interpretive. Nothing wrong with either approach (I lean towards the more free form method), but the success comes through whether or not, when finished, it all works together. And in this room, it does.
Having worked with interior designers, both directly and through galleries, it’s always interesting to see their process for designing an interior space. The starting point could be a piece of furniture, a color theme, a piece of art. Artwork is often either the catalyst for the design project, or the finishing touch.
I was contacted recently by a collector who purchased a piece (“Dusk Light”, 32 x 32) to be part of a room renovation at their residence in Newport, RI. This new piece would join another work acquired previously, both of which were to tie in with the design plan. The images above were sent following the completion of the rooms, and feature architectural elements that tie in not only aesthetically with the work, but regionally.
“Dusk Light” is based on an old barn down the road on the Knight Farm, in Amherst, NH, and the barnboard seen on the walls of the photo on the left is of salvaged wood from a farm not far from here. And the photo on the right, featuring “Summer Color” includes an antique game table made in New Hampshire in the 1700s.
20 x 20 : oil on canvas
On a recent trip to Vermont, traveling along the old roads that seem to go on forever, meandering through hills and valleys, the old farms stand with the familiarity of the last time I’ve taken this route or that, and the only thing that seems to change are the tracks of tractors, carts, trucks, and other equipment used to work the fields and meadows, some fresh, some fading over time.
Years ago, while taking a “literary journalism” course at Boston University, the instructor talked about the book “House” by Tracy Kidder, a writer I admired for how he handled non-fiction storytelling in a way that read like fiction. In the book, Kidder lead readers through the construction of a house…a subject that could have easily resulted in a DIY-sounding how-to guide, like those you find at Home Depot. Instead, it was visual, gripping, and left you wanting to find out more as the story unfolded.
The instructor pointed out that it wasn’t the subject (house building) that made the book great, but how the author composed it…that it was the choices Kidder made during the writing process to leave things out, add other things, and to exaggerate or minimize details.
Whether composing prose or a painting, the distinction between subject matter and decisions made in the composing of the work are what makes it unique. In the sketch above, a scene I’m very familiar with in East Dennis (Cape Cod), was composed to focus on the light, more so than the structure itself. There are elements in the composition that will be taken out (the background tree and driveway), as they (I feel) don’t contribute to the “story.” In creating anything, it’s the editing (the unseen decisions made while composing) that ultimately turn the subject into art.
The blocked in painting of the earlier post titled “Recurring Theme” showed the early stages of “Sage,” based on an often painted barn not far from home. Here, “Sage” is complete, and captures neither literal color of the structure, or the mood at any given time, but is instead an imagined palette applied to a real place I know well.
About a mile up the road, at the top of Walnut Hill, one of the old Amherst farms remains mostly as it has over the past 100 or so years, though worn and weathered with time. The old structure is not maintained by it’s current owners, and every time I walk by I see some small sign of deterioration…a new broken window pane, a little less paint, a slightly more tilted door. There is something comforting in seeing this inanimate object age, as we all do, but to see it still standing, carrying on.
I’ve painted this particular barn quite a few times, each time differently, but each time with the purpose of revisiting this subject (and theme) to cast it in a different light, and in a way to give it new life.
Sometimes the inspiration for a painting comes from encountering scenes, particularly when the intention is to do so. I often drive through rural New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, looking for dusty old roads that lead to old farms, abandoned properties, or landscapes off the beaten path. Inspiration can pop up anywhere, anytime. This piece (currently untitled) came while watching my daughter Lily’s soccer game in Hollis. The High School field sits next to an old stately farm, still active, but surrounded by newer homes. The farm is not unlike many in the area, but the stately old trees that have spent the past 100 or so years providing shade, cast great shadows, and it was these that caught my attention. A quick photo with the iPhone and several charcoal sketches later, the piece is nearing completion.
The best ideas for paintings come from quick glimpses of things, scenes, or thing, that make you look twice. On a recent bike ride through secluded beach roads in Dennisport, Ma, along the Nantucket Sound, I came across an old beach house where someone had hung a blue beach towel on a simple clothesline. I took a quick photo with my phone of the scene.
There was a lot of “stuff” in that shot, things that didn’t matter, but what did was the bright blue towel, sunlit against the weathered cedar shakes of the old cottage, the simple clothesline poles and the Sound in the background (though obscured by a building I wish wasn’t actually there).
To capture the idea, I did a quick sketch with a Sharpie on the back of an envelope, then quickly blocked in the piece to define the composition. If you focus in on the thing that first captured your attention–that made that initial visual impression–and leave everything else out, you get (im my experience), more story in the finished piece.
Recently sold piece, “Hartland Hill”, through Woodstock Gallery, Woodstock Vermont.
