First published October 6, 2006
No matter what I may do during the course of everyday life, in my heart I am an artist be the medium painting, photography, poetry or performance, and my constant inspiration is the panorama of the world around me.
The natural world then, in its selfless way of simply being and not doing, is a ready source of inspiration, always prepared to take me in to lose myself in its deceptive depth and complexity, returning refreshed, with new insights about myself and the course of my life. Some of my earliest memories are of sunlight splashed on the grass in the backyard, the whispering and fluttering leaves of the elm and maple trees, and the face of a perfect pink zinnia, just my height. The times of day, the change of seasons, the character of light and shadow still fill me with that same thrill of excitement which today encourage me to run to my materials to either record what I see and feel, or to just create, no matter what the subject of a work may be, even if it’s only in my mind.
I could not live in a place without such variety of pasture and wood, valley and hill, season and weather, which translate for me as color and shape, texture and pattern, shadows and light and mood in both word and visual form. I take the “long way” along back roads to and from destinations, always finding places to which I can return later, to draw, to photograph, to watch a sunrise or a sunset or just to be, releasing myself from the everyday jangle of stuff and refilling the well of creative insights.
Some of these places have become so special to me that I have bonded with them as if they were living beings, rounding a curve in happy anticipation, lingering to capture every physical and emotional detail, feeling a protective fondness as we do for the things we love.
Creative expression takes a certain release to let what flows into the eyes and heart flow out onto the paper without hesitation or judgment. The works I have created of these spaces–a certain field on a summer morning, a hillside and valley in winter twilight, an abandoned pasture in the heat of August–were done with the certainty of a lengthy and complex relationship. These are the works to which I return to study as I have returned to the physical places, amazed at what I have done and knowing that it’s my love for the space that has enabled me to distill the image into a medium in a way that speaks to me and to others. Because I have studied these places with such intensity I know every rock and plant, and the very moment when the June sunrise creates the most intense shadows across a path or when the last light of a winter dusk illuminates the snow with indigo.
And so it’s like a betrayal to see the FOR SALE sign blocking my view and I am no longer permitted to visit, knowing that the days are numbered. I have been moved to tears to see the big trucks move in, pulling up all the trees like so many weeds, plowing under the grasses and goldenrod and brambles, cutting into the slopes which had caught the sun or were drifted with snow, paving over the soil which had nourished generations of flora and fauna.
And for what? Another ticky-tacky housing development, discount store and strip mall or generic office building? It used to be that these constructions occurred only occasionally and in or near already-populated places while the landscape would roll on in its ageless way, but now any piece of land is fair game and I can’t seem to do a thing to protect these places where I find such beauty.
What is the value of the beauty of nature? What is the value of inspiration drawn from that beauty? Is the value of these developments, with their transient nature and predictable uniformity, greater than the value of a work created in the likeness of the landscape it replaced? More valuable than the simple beauty of the landscape itself, which maintains its own nature at no cost to or effort from anyone? Some of the world’s greatest social and political philosophies were drawn from observation of and participation in natural processes, and some of our greatest decisions were made during a walk in the woods or a sail on a boat, and it was the pensive quality of nature itself that facilitated that process.
The environment is taxed beyond its capability, an ecosystem is diminished, native fauna are no longer welcome in the only place they’ve ever known, neighbors to the site have lost their peaceful privacy and I’ve lost another friend, another site which had turned my creative spark into a flash of inspiration.
I first wrote about this in 1999. I had been commissioned to paint four pieces of equal size and decided to do the four seasons, using landscapes typical of not only southwestern Pennsylvania, but also of the immediate area within five miles of my client and myself. When the lushly overgrown field that was the model for Summer, my favorite, the one that still takes my breath away when I look at the original, went up for sale, then was stripped and graded away to a mud flat with a pre-fab office building stuck at one edge, I wrote the first version of this essay, committed myself to leaving the day job and working at home and doing my best to record the landscape around me. It is still a mud flat and the building has never been more than half rented.
Since then, I have painted dozens of places in the Chartiers Valley, and feel as if I curse the areas I paint; no sooner do I finish a painting than the site goes up for sale. I find a place where there is no traffic noise to sit and observe the sky and soon enough there are houses on the land that I could never afford to purchase.
The rate at which I’m losing these places is alarming. Where I used to be able to take off on the spur of the moment for a burst of inspiration or a drawing session en plein air, I now have to check to see if that space still exists. I used to be able to walk or bicycle but now need to drive, and drive farther all the time to find new places to restore my creative self.
I understand the need for new development to meet society’s growing demands for services and purchasing ability. I can see a farmer’s reasons for selling the old family farm to developers offering a fine price for land; the family that has struggled at backbreaking labor all their lives can at least have a decent retirement and live comfortably for a while. But while we have inner cities and small towns with infrastructure in place but which languish in blight, often within a mile or two of new development, any fool would think we were simply in a race to pave every square inch of our region, and this while our population declines.
Perhaps it is selfish of me to want these places to remain undisturbed just so that I can experience them at will and create my pretty pictures of them. But I’m not the only one who wants this, and I don’t want the works that I create to be the documented remainder of a once grand and complicated natural landscape.
~~~
The original article, written in october 1999
No matter what I may do during the course of everyday life, in my heart I am an artist and my constant inspiration is the beauty of the world around me.
The natural world then, in its selfless way of simply being and not doing, is a ready source of inspiration. Some of my earliest memories are of sunlight splashed on the grass in the backyard, the whispering and fluttering leaves of the elm and maple trees, and the face of a perfect pink zinnia, just my height. The times of day, the change of seasons, the character of light and shadow still fill me with that same thrill of excitement which today encourage me to run to my materials to either record what I see and feel, or to just create, no matter what the subject of a work may be, even if it’s only in my mind.
I could not live in a place without such variety of pasture and wood, valley and hill, seasons and weather, which translate for me as color and shape, texture and pattern, shadows and light and mood. I take the “long way” along back roads to and from destinations, always finding places to which I can return later, to draw, to photograph, to watch a sunrise or a sunset or just to be, releasing myself from the everyday jangle of stuff and setting free my non-verbal, non-logical creative self.
Some of these places have become so special to me that I have bonded with them as if they were living beings, excited to see them, sad to leave them, protective of them. Creating artwork takes a certain release to let what flows into the eyes and heart flow out onto the paper without hesitation or judgment. The works I have created of these spaces-a certain field on a summer morning, a hillside and valley in winter twilight, an abandoned pasture in the heat of August-are some of my best. These are the works to which I return to study as I have returned to the physical places, amazed at what I have done and knowing that it’s my love for the space that has enabled me to put the image on paper in a way that speaks to me and to others. Because I have studied these places with such intensity I know every rock and plant, and the very moment when the June sunrise creates the most intense shadows across a path or when the yellow of an autumn sunset turns golden and enhances the brilliance of the leaves on the hillside.
And so it’s like a betrayal to see the FOR SALE sign blocking my view and I am no longer permitted to visit, knowing that the days are numbered. I have been moved to tears to see the big trucks move in, pulling up all the trees like so many weeds, plowing under the grasses and goldenrod and brambles, cutting into the slopes which had caught the sun or were drifted with snow, paving over the soil which had nourished generations of flora and fauna. And for what? Another ticky-tacky housing development, discount store and strip mall or generic office building-hardly the stuff of inspiration. The environment is taxed beyond its capability, an ecosystem is diminished, little critters are no longer welcome in the only place they’ve ever known, neighbors to the site have lost their peaceful privacy and I’ve lost another friend, another site which had turned my creative spark into a flash of inspiration.
The rate at which I’m losing these places is alarming. I no longer get my daily dose of beauty just by driving to work. Where I used to be able to take off on the spur of the moment for a burst of inspiration or a drawing session en plein air, I now have to check to see if that space still exists. I need to drive farther away from Pittsburgh all the time to find new places to restore my creative self.
I understand some of the need for new development to meet society’s growing demands for services and purchasing ability. I can see a family’s reasons for selling the old family farm to developers; no one buys farms to work them anymore, and the family can at least have a decent retirement after a lifetime of increasing struggle. Perhaps it is selfish of me to want these places to remain undisturbed just so that I can experience them at will and create my pretty pictures of them. But I don’t want the works that I create to be the documented remainder of a once grand and complicated natural landscape.
~~~
About the artwork
“Summer” is an abandoned farm field on a high ridge which I passed regularly on the way to work each morning for six years, seen right after an early morning storm. I would reach this portion of my drive and pause to look at this field with the morning unfolding above it, different each day, take a deep breath, and go on. The site was developed a few years later, but I still remember that each time I pass by it, even now. It’s one of a four-part commission I painted years ago featuring the four seasons in Western Pennsylvania. Read an essay about the painting, “Summer”, above, and purchase a digital, giclee or canvas print from my shop, Portraits of Animals.
Read more: Essays ♦ Short Stories ♦ Poetry
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