Home again

Kansas Afternoon. Oil on stretched canvas, 10x30
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I'm home.

And never have two words held so much for me, or surprised me so immensely.

I thought a lot while I was driving about the differences between this trip and the one I made in July. On the outside, they looked the same. I lit off for western regions, stayed for about three weeks, made more than 40 paintings, reached home spent and exhausted.

But that first trip was pure escape. I flung myself out of my newspaper job, out of a 20-year career, and flew like a boomerang out and back. It was very much a journey of freedom, and I'd have been happy for it to continue for another few weeks.

I think that on that trip, I showed myself that I could paint. I'd staked everything on that question - and the exhilaration picked me and carried me.

On this trip, I didn't have to ask that question, or thrill from its answer. On this trip, my questions were much deeper, much more serious: Has my art grown? I have painted and painted and painted these past months. I have experimented and measured, read and studied and worked - and yet, I look at some of the paintings I made on this trip, and see paintings I made a year ago. I look at others and see paintings that I made in my first weeks and months of painting. I see no progress, no change, no growth in vision or in skill.

And then I look again and see worlds of change. I see brighter lights and deeper shadows, and a finer line between them. I see a more knowing hand, and a more pervasive sense of experiment. I see paintings that speak less of the painter and beckon more strongly to the viewer. In these, I do see progress.

How I wish I could keep my mind and judgment here in this second look - but of course, I can't.

I do wonder if the similarities in my paintings arise from the simple fact that the same type of scenes draw me. I will always paint what I love, and I will always love wheat fields and treeless horizons and rhythmic, rippling hills. I will always love huge, open skies and far-off mountains. I will always love the sun playing through tree limbs, water shining in a ditch in a field, a path curving through an open gate. These sights make me imagine. These sights make me hope.

So I am home now, with my questions and my paintings and my worries, and there's no place I'd rather be. Spring has barely arrived here in Connecticut. The earth is cool beneath my bare feet. I'm glad that I've come back in time to watch the spring unfold - and in time to paint it, too.

As always, thank you for reading.