Hill Farm, Early Spring

Another "rural cathedral" that's weathered a century of seasons and hard work.

Available from Gallery North Star.

Click here to see earlier stages of "Hill Farm, Early Spring".

Hill Farm, Early Spring (detail, in progress)

Here's another painting keyed around a strong local color (the green truck) that has required some advance thinking about compositional unity and variety--though it always finally gets down to just putting the paint on the canvas and seeing what happens.

Red Truck and Wood Pile (in progress)

Here's a detail of first color--all keyed to the red truck--on yesterday's under painting.

Red Truck and Wood Pile (in progress)

Between plein air forays and too-brief attempts to get the garden planted, I've been hunkered down in my studio working on paintings (including this autumnal landscape) for my upcoming show at
West Branch Gallery.

Near Cabot

Today is the start of my autumn landscape painting workshop--hopefully the fickle fall weather will cooperate for plenty of plein air sessions, but if not, my studio is ready for a week of painting with my hard-working students.

Bathroom Sink with Bonnard (detail)

Right as I was packing my car to return to Vermont on Thursday, I found this painting stacked in a pile of stuff from my old Washington studio. I had designed it as a homage to Bonnard, to the great painter Antonio Lopez Garcia, and to my bricklayer grandfather, who laid the blue tiles in this bathroom of our family home he built in Takoma Park. Maybe I'll finish this one someday, but until then it's going back into storage, and tomorrow I'll be getting back to painting my here and now, the Vermont landscape.

Seine, Evening II

Here's the left side of the diptych (complete piece is below) inspired by what I felt one evening a few summers ago looking at what must be the most beautiful river in any city in the world. Late this afternoon I walked across the Pont Neuf from the Louvre, and the Seine showed a different lovely face, lit this time by a low autumn sun. Hopefully I can remember that in another painting.

Seine, Evening I

I spent six hours in the Tate Gallery this afternoon, and was still rushing around at closing time trying to take everything in (I shouldn't have left the Turners for last.) Tomorrow morning I leave via the chunnel for Paris, and I'll be happy to see the Seine again.

Vineyard and Winter Wheat, Morning

On the other side of the road, with my back to the lavender fields, surrounded by color and the clicking of cicadas.

Lavender Fields, Late Afternoon

Standing here painting, every now and then catching a scent of something like a violet sea breeze.

Memory: Hedgerow, Iowa

I was waylaid by an unfamiliar dirt road this morning on my way back from Montpelier, and driving slowly past newly plowed fields and freshly leafed trees was reminded again of late spring days years ago, painting on back roads near Iowa City.

Memory: Plowed Fields, Iowa

I went out to Iowa after graduate school with the vague reasons one has for moving when twenty four but ended up with a sense of purpose there, studying printmaking at the university, painting still life in my decrepit farmhouse studio, and venturing out to paint the gentle, functional landscape that I learned to love.

Cousin Ann

My mother was an early patron, and her house is full of paintings she purchased from me in the lean years after I finished art school. She commissioned this portrait of her cousin Ann, orphaned as a child, whom my mother remembered with love for both her kindness and sadness.

Study

A self portrait.

Memory: Corot

My mother has this painting, a copy of a Corot I did in art school, hanging in her home. It's a memory of my education as a painter, and the many hours I stood in front of my french easel in museums, both on my own and with my teacher Israel Hershberg. By copying (which may seem archaic, but is really quite a radical act in the face of the current art establishment) I learned something about Corot's marks, process, composition, and began to develop a formal vocabulary to express an emotional response.

Fields/Grapes

Rather than a journal painting today, here is the first in a series of new paintings I'm working on called "Places/Possessions"-- multi-panel compositions that explore a relationship between still life and landscape.