I Know Something More

I Know Something More

Oil on canvas, 16x20

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if you are interested in buying this painting

Our house in New York stood on a rise about 30 yards from the western bank of the Neversink River. Most of the time, this was wonderful. We swam and fished in the river, listened to its rolling sound, watched the birds and wildlife that lived along its shores.

But when the river flooded, it was a nightmare. It would come around in front of our house and cut off our access to the road, potentially trapping us there, on what would be an island surrounded by raging river torrents.

We were flooded out many times, and a couple of those times, the flooding was severe. One flood left 60 houses in our neighborhood condemned; we were a federal disaster area. Everything in the basement of our tiny home was destroyed that time. The river opened a crater in our driveway, deposited two feet of silt and sand, and pushed all the small trees over at an angle. Debris was caught in branches higher than my head, and we found dead fish in our yard for months.

I grew afraid of heavy rain. A sound I had once loved, rain falling on leaves, I grew to hate. I came to despise the Weather Channel and everyone on it. I could feel anxiety and even panic grow as the storms strengthened.

And even now, even though we are gone from the house, even though we live nowhere near a river, the fear still courses inside me. This heavy, heavy rain has reawakened anxiety that I thought was gone forever.

On another note, a sunny one, I made this painting last week - it's my third go at these tall trees on the reservoir in Groton, and I think it's not the last. I love the way the setting sun warms the banks, the trunks, the limbs, and how the reflections shimmer in the sunny depth of water.

On the excellent-news front, all three of the paintings I submitted to the all-animal show at the Schuler School of Fine Arts in Baltimore were accepted. All three! Yippee. I couldn't be happier. I'm going to have the chance to visit an old friend there, and I'm going to stretch things out a little and do some painting on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, one of my favorite places.

Thank you for reading!