Maple at the End of Road

For about one week of autumn I can walk down Hollister Hill Road and see this maple glowing bright orange against a very blue mountain. How do you hold on to that image, and carry it into the winter?

Memory: Provence Farmhouse

Every summer for the last eleven years I've returned to the same tiny hamlet in the Luberon Mountains to teach and paint. The look of the patterned landscape, feel of a warm old stone wall, smell of lavender and wild thyme, taste of a cherry stolen in the orchard: Provence is a feast for the senses. Painting this memory gave me a little vacation from a freezing January day here in New England.

Shallots and Korean Bowl

I threw shallot bulbs in the garden in June, forgot about them through the summer, and harvested them when weeding beds in November. Next summer I'll be less casual and plant more, as they taste and look wonderful. I found the little bowl in an Asian antique shop in Washington, attracted by the unusual pattern and shade of blue.

Tibbet's Barn

This barn, which has been in the same family for over 200 years, is down the road from our house. The cows have been gone for a generation, but the fields are still hayed. There's a nice little pond on one corner of this road, and a distinctive, dignified farmhouse on the other. I painted this in October when it was still barely warm enough to work outside.

Last from the Garden

Right before our first snowfall I went out to finish cleaning up the garden beds, and found this last eggplant hanging on amidst its withered brethren. The tomatoes were also lonely survivors from long-gone summer. (You will never find a tomato that shade of yellow in a grocery store.) I bought the patterned cloth in Fells Point, Baltimore in the 1970's at a big, funky fabric emporium, and it's moved with me to many studios since then.

Steve's Barn & Maple Tree

I love seeing this farm appear over a rise in the road when I walk on Hollister Hill. The barn door, roof, silo, farm equipment, and sometimes the cows, depending on where they are wandering in the adjoining field, make for an endless combination of shapes. I painted this view at the end of October, when the maple had a few more days before it lost its leaves.