Sunset on Mary's Curtains

Sunset on Mary's Curtains - Egg Tempera on panel, 20.5 x 24 inches - $4600

Egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with egg yolk and water. These paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist. Egg tempera painting was the primary panel painting medium for nearly every painter in the European Medieval and Early renaissance period up to 1500. For example, every surviving panel painting by Michelangelo is egg tempera.

Available at Blowing Rock Frameworks & Gallery. Call for more information - (828) 295-0041.

Illinois

A trip through the midwestern U.S. will take you through miles and miles of farm land where billboards line the roads extolling the virtues of the latest chemical that will increase a farmer's yield. As you cruise past fields that extend for miles, you notice that the corn stands high but in September, it seems awful dry, like its ready to fall over and be plowed under because someone forgot to harvest it. That's what I thought when I went to visit my son in Illinois last fall. But I was wrong. The miles of dry corn is part of the plan.

Apparently, the farmers let the corn dry in the fields where it is much less expensive to dry it, so that when it is harvested, it can go right into the production of corn products. Not to provide you and I with fresh sweet corn for our summer cook-outs. Its for corn syrup, my friends, corn syrup. That's what drives the farm economy in these parts.

I was fascinated by the barns in Illinois and wandered off the road to capture this composition with the golden fields behind the barn from the drying stalks. The farmer gladly gave me permission when I explained what I wanted to do. Behind me were acres and acres of soy beans, another of the country's staple products. It may seem boring when you see so many barns like this one, but I find beauty around every bend in the simple things. That's what makes the landscape so interesting. Simple things like this are used by the people who need them and they seem to take on a personality of their own, often reflecting their owners. You can see many plain buildings standing out in the miles and miles of soil, buildings that are for utility, not so much for beauty.

I think an artist has to look for beauty in the world around them because I believe its there. Textures, shapes, shadows and reflections all help to make a mosaic of interesting compositions to the artist who trains their eye to see them.

Through the Window

Churches are dying. Small ones are losing members to larger ones. Larger ones are losing members to mega-ones. Mega-ones are becoming TV-mega-ones where they measure their success on how many tune into their broadcasts or stream their events online. If you aren't increasing your social media "likes", your church is not growing and the pressure is on to get more numbers. After all, its a competitive world out there and no more evident in filling up the pews on Sunday.

This little church is over 100 years old and served a small community for many years. But it has fallen into disrepair. The grass around it is mowed each summer, but the paint is peeling and the winter winds have taken their toll on its whitewashed exterior. Regular services are no longer held there so it is used occasionally for a gathering or special event when someone wants a picturesque background. As I pass by, I occasionally see a photographer trying to capture the well-worn visage like they would a quaint old homestead.

Many times I paint because a scene or composition captures my attention and I want to go back and see it again.

Many times I paint because a scene or composition captures my attention and I want to go back and see it again. This little church has classic vaulted windows with stained glass that you don't see on many churches today. The clapboard siding and small steeple with a bell tower define this rustic church design from a century ago and I can understand how it seems to define for many people, the America of their childhood. I didn't want to include too much detail in my painting because I wanted the focus to be on that window and its distinctive shape.

The extreme angle of the light on that side of the building was to my advantage as the shadows helped to distinguish the shapes against an otherwise nondescript white. But I have come to appreciate even the simple walls of a building when they speak of the character of those who built them long ago, or those who depended on them for many years. Texture is also important to me and many times I will see a composition merely out of the texture of a surface.

There are a lot of little churches like this in the mountain communities around me and I will venture out to find and paint them in ways that bring their uniqueness to light. While the Bible tells us that God does not dwell in buildings made by human hands, churches like this one are a testimony to the reverence once offered to Him and the sense of community that they provided to a rural area in the mountains.