Summer moves so quickly.....there is always a change of mood in early August that seems partly a response to the change in land, air, and light. The crops are mature, or getting there, it darkens earlier, the smells are a bit different. Acrylic collage painting on archival paper 7.5 x 11 inches, signed lightly in pencil.
It is strange to consider the history behind how I make things now. Sometimes when people ask how this is done, I see almost exactly how I got to this point, and am only mystified it took so long to do such a simple thing. In a small praire town I looked at a lot of skies, enjoyed rambling over any bit of wild land I could find, went searching for it in many places, played hooky in middle school to go sit in the snow by the river, carve sticks and stare at the landscape just to feel the wonder of things. And I remember trying to figure out how to put things together in a picture....always interested in that from perhaps aged 12 forward. I had Mr. Egenschweiller (sp) order every book on art through interlibrary loans I could find (bless your kind, sweet heart). I remember standing in the stationary store down by railway street, smelling that wonderful odour of oiled wood floors and the green granular cleaner they used to sprinkle on and then sweep up. In that store I remember looking at the 'how to paint' books and would marvel at the skill (seems déclassé now, but any instruction helps). And I was eager, and excited, wanted to learn....I'd draw horrible pencil drawings of trees and landscapes. Years of art school takes you through many styles and influences, your tastes change, many things are sampled before you seem to settle, all kinds of techniques are tried. These pieces now are a distillation of many things absorbed through the years....art history from French realism, Corot, Barbizon, to the impressionists, fauves, post impressionists, expressionists, and all manner of isms, including various forms of abstraction and non-representation in the 20th century. In all this, there is belief in the hand....your hand can do much...let it make things! Let it find out how to make things....I still have that naïve belief in picture magic of the 12 year old boy standing in that stationary school by railway street.
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