Summer Afternoon, Study of a Farm Field
2024 | Oil on archival paper mounted on panel | 5×7 inches
This is the view from the graveyard I used to run to when I was a teenager.The graveyard was exactly one mile from mile house, and on my two mile route, I would stop there in the middle to sit against a gravestone and look out at this field.It’s not a dramatic vista, but it has the simple, small-scale poignance that I associate with a lot of the landscapes of my childhood.A bouquet of roses can be overwhelming and impressive, but sometimes a single rose says more— similarly, a dramatic mountain vista can be awe-inspiring, but I think it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that the tree at the end of your road can sometimes have more aesthetic and emotional significance even than the most dramatic vista you have ever seen.In CS Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised By Joy, he notes an experience he had as a child, which he counts as one of the most significant aesthetic experiences of his life, which was brought upon him by looking at a bush in his family’s garden.“As I stood beside a flowering currant bush on a summer day there suddenly arose in me without warning, and as if from a depth not of years but of centuries, the memory of that earlier morning at the Old House when my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery. It is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; Milton's "enormous bliss" of Eden (giving the full, ancient meaning to "enormous") comes somewhere near it.”Looking at this view, as a child, I used to think back on my earlier childhood and look forward to my future adult life, and suddenly have a sensation that past and future combined into an eternal present moment— everything that had ever happened to me, or would ever happen to me, was all happening to me (in an imaginative sense) in that present moment. The future helped me understand the past, and the past helped me understand the future, and while sitting there I almost felt like I ceased to exist, and was just a detached observer of my own life.
Anyway, in another sense, it’s just a tree and a farm field.That’s one of the beauties of art, to me, is that it can have tremendous emotional associations, but also can be experienced as a simple meditation on the world as it appears right in front of you
This painting is sold in a solid wood frame, as pictured.
2024 | Oil on archival paper mounted on panel | 5×7 inches
This is the view from the graveyard I used to run to when I was a teenager.The graveyard was exactly one mile from mile house, and on my two mile route, I would stop there in the middle to sit against a gravestone and look out at this field.It’s not a dramatic vista, but it has the simple, small-scale poignance that I associate with a lot of the landscapes of my childhood.A bouquet of roses can be overwhelming and impressive, but sometimes a single rose says more— similarly, a dramatic mountain vista can be awe-inspiring, but I think it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that the tree at the end of your road can sometimes have more aesthetic and emotional significance even than the most dramatic vista you have ever seen.In CS Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised By Joy, he notes an experience he had as a child, which he counts as one of the most significant aesthetic experiences of his life, which was brought upon him by looking at a bush in his family’s garden.“As I stood beside a flowering currant bush on a summer day there suddenly arose in me without warning, and as if from a depth not of years but of centuries, the memory of that earlier morning at the Old House when my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery. It is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; Milton's "enormous bliss" of Eden (giving the full, ancient meaning to "enormous") comes somewhere near it.”Looking at this view, as a child, I used to think back on my earlier childhood and look forward to my future adult life, and suddenly have a sensation that past and future combined into an eternal present moment— everything that had ever happened to me, or would ever happen to me, was all happening to me (in an imaginative sense) in that present moment. The future helped me understand the past, and the past helped me understand the future, and while sitting there I almost felt like I ceased to exist, and was just a detached observer of my own life.
Anyway, in another sense, it’s just a tree and a farm field.That’s one of the beauties of art, to me, is that it can have tremendous emotional associations, but also can be experienced as a simple meditation on the world as it appears right in front of you
This painting is sold in a solid wood frame, as pictured.
2024 | Oil on archival paper mounted on panel | 5×7 inches
This is the view from the graveyard I used to run to when I was a teenager.The graveyard was exactly one mile from mile house, and on my two mile route, I would stop there in the middle to sit against a gravestone and look out at this field.It’s not a dramatic vista, but it has the simple, small-scale poignance that I associate with a lot of the landscapes of my childhood.A bouquet of roses can be overwhelming and impressive, but sometimes a single rose says more— similarly, a dramatic mountain vista can be awe-inspiring, but I think it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that the tree at the end of your road can sometimes have more aesthetic and emotional significance even than the most dramatic vista you have ever seen.In CS Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised By Joy, he notes an experience he had as a child, which he counts as one of the most significant aesthetic experiences of his life, which was brought upon him by looking at a bush in his family’s garden.“As I stood beside a flowering currant bush on a summer day there suddenly arose in me without warning, and as if from a depth not of years but of centuries, the memory of that earlier morning at the Old House when my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery. It is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; Milton's "enormous bliss" of Eden (giving the full, ancient meaning to "enormous") comes somewhere near it.”Looking at this view, as a child, I used to think back on my earlier childhood and look forward to my future adult life, and suddenly have a sensation that past and future combined into an eternal present moment— everything that had ever happened to me, or would ever happen to me, was all happening to me (in an imaginative sense) in that present moment. The future helped me understand the past, and the past helped me understand the future, and while sitting there I almost felt like I ceased to exist, and was just a detached observer of my own life.
Anyway, in another sense, it’s just a tree and a farm field.That’s one of the beauties of art, to me, is that it can have tremendous emotional associations, but also can be experienced as a simple meditation on the world as it appears right in front of you
This painting is sold in a solid wood frame, as pictured.