Slogging through February

Well, February is the month that I always question my sanity. About living out here on the edge of civilization, on this windy damn hill, in a drafty old farmhouse. The weather was just dreadful last week, for the most part. Windy, cold, spitting snow or ice balls or rain or something. Backstage in theater they make the sound of thunder with a piece of sheet metal snapped like one is dusting a rug. That’s what my roof sounds like in a 40 mph wind. It’s hard to sleep. And lack of sleep makes me nutty. Keep that in mind when you see the work coming out of the mental pipeline a few weeks from now! 

Seasonally, February is the “dark before the dawn,” though. The thought of spring keeps me hanging on, and in summer I NEVER question why I live here. And actually, I’m pretty happy to be here in the winter, as long as the wind’s not blowing. And I’m not running out of firewood. And the car is not leaving me stranded on the highway. I’m not a fan of emoticons, but this is where the frowny-face goes. 

On a more positive note, I took six finished landscape paintings down to Jean & TJ Tremmel’s WareHouse Gallery last week, I am appearing there as a “guest artist,” for an undetermined period of time. Rockbridge area residents, if you haven’t visited their gallery yet, you really should. They have constructed a really unique space on the first floor of their historic old warehouse building to show the work of the resident artists and potters and the occasional guest. You can find them at 302 McLaughlin St in Lexington (across from Rail’s End, right next to where they parked the train station when they moved it), or on Facebook as WareHouse Gallery Art Pottery, and they will have a website up and running soon. If you drop in, please tell them I sent you. Maybe TJ will be marginally less crabby next time I show up unannounced [just kidding TJ!!].

Abandoned House (8"x10", oil on panel, 2013)

This is one of the paintings I have on display at the WareHouse Gallery right now. I took a major risk to get the shaky cell phone picture I used as the basis, driving south on I-81, sun in my eyes, trying to take a picture of something on the other side of the road. A house I have always been fascinated by, a modest little farmhouse slowly being subsumed by Autumn Olives in a cowpasture. I just love the raking light this time of year. What I really like in a landscape is often a very fugitive moment, lasting only a few minutes or so, something that would be pretty hard to capture plein-air.