Future Town?

Today I'm packing up my "Elements of Place" series for delivery this Sunday to the Art of Action project. Each of my "Elements" paintings has a companion panel that shows a look down a road (hopefully not taken) into Vermont's future. Here a "big box" store replaces the local economy and community of a town center.

Click here for an article in Vermont Life magazine on the Art of Action project.

Home, Summer

A brief, intense explosion of color in the front yard of a small town home.

Home, Winter

The Vermont landscape is transformed by seasons. In winter a home's familiar face becomes mysterious, disguised under a white cloak of snow.

Home, Spring (in process)

First daffodils, and ladder waiting for last wet snow on the porch roof.

Town, Winter

A cold late afternoon on a short day in cold, late, long winter.

Town, Spring

Warm sun and long shadows on an April morning in Bristol, Vermont.

Forest, Autumn (in process)

I'm back to my Vermont "Elements of Place" series, coming down the home stretch in the next two weeks with my final images. Here a child's figure is camouflaged among the stream, trees and fallen leaves, one part in the whole pattern of the forest.

Water, Spring

We don't have the ocean in Vermont, but we have all other kinds of water, and most everyone has a pond (either man or beaver-made) nearby. This one is a work of art created by my friends Martin and Laura, with a half-Japanese, half New England inspiration.

Water, Summer

Like most people, I love any form water takes in nature. But brooks are my favorite--hearing them rush by, crouching on a rock to look closely beneath the changing surface.The bank's random arrangement of sticks, plants, rich humus and stone seems like perfection. I'm always happy next to a brook.

Mountain, Summer

Looking down from Mt. Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont: a vantage point that transforms our comfortable and familiar landscape into a place both grand and alien.

Mountain, Autumn (in process)

Mountain as a constant backdrop, though one of changeable colors and values.

Forest, Summer (in process)

Whether it's a receding road or a footpath leading to a patch of light, I like that sense of being invited forward into an unknown place.

Forest, Spring (in process)

For a few weeks in early spring, sugarbushes (maple woods) are busy places, with tree after tree either festooned the old-fashioned way with metal buckets hanging from hammered spigots, or beribboned in the modern style by lines of hosing running to collecting barrels. Either way the precious sap will be carefully collected, trucked in a pickup down a muddy back road, and boiled for hours by closely watching families in many a small, steamy sugarhouse.

Town, Summer (in process)

Where's there's a town in Vermont, there's a river. Montpelier's waterway no longer is used for industrial energy or transportation, but the Winooski is still, as a thing of beauty, a vital part of the town's economy, and provides (like rivers that run through cities everywhere) the lifeblood of this place.

Town, Spring (in process)

Sitting in the sun in Bristol on the first warm morning.

Town, Autumn (in process)

I like backstreets that slope down to water (rivers that once were a town's economic life blood and energy, but now run beside quiet places that welcome the solitary.)

To see the watercolor study for this painting click here.

Water, Winter (in process)

Ice fishing on Woodbury Pond. (With typical New England reticence, bodies of water that would be a lake anywhere else are reduced to nominal pond size here in Vermont.)

Water, Autumn (in process)

From a September afternoon in the Champlain Islands, a magical little swamp of reflected colors and shapes.

Mountain, Spring (in process)

Kate's farm and maple tree in the season with the most gentle, subtle color (after the whites retreat and before the greens completely claim the field.)

Mountain, Summer (in process)

The first stage of another view from a mountain top (this time in Stowe) in the season of taffeta blues and velvet greens.