I did this abstract back in the 2004 era, when we had first moved to the farm. I was looking through old images for a project I'm working on and was struck at the simplicity of this piece, and the openness of the landscape. It was more open then, no Misfit Villages or paddocks, hardly a fence standing, just twenty acres that was beginning to emerge into what is now Apifera. I guess you could say this painting shows the optimism of the painter at that time-so many ideas to fulfill, so many plans, and some of those plans were still percolating in me. It will be interesting to look back in another ten years–what will strike my eye when I look at my art of today? You can't lie in abstract painting.
I remember those first months here [before the blog, now I wish I'd had one then] and how I was both in awe of the landscape around me, and also wobbly as I walked it. Some days the wobble was a child's delight,
Wow, I am in partnership with you now.
Other days in the first year to two years, I had moments of momentary panic,
What have we done?
I felt like a fish out of water at times–mostly because I had moved from a good grounding of friends and family from Minneapolis, and then married and moved to the farm-a very rural, conservative area with pockets of open mindedness. In time, I found others who meshed with us-not that one needs exactly the same opinions to get along, but it felt very renegade here-because it was...and is.
But when I look at this painting, I see a calming. My soul had mirrored my feeling of awe and contentment into that painting with the open spaces of green, and hints of shiny accents as the barn emerged in values of red under the big top sky of the newly formed Apifera. There is no sense of worry in this piece, or discombobulation one can feel moving to a rural area. There is no judgement of surrounding gun shots, neighboring farmers with non maintained fencing or ATV's kicking up dust on what was a quiet morning. There had not been one Misfit death as I set paint down that day because there were no Misfts yet. The farm was waiting for us, waiting for a new mission–its all right there in that painting.
