Grace House, Good-bye

 

19" x 31.125", Acrylic on metal, © 2023

Private Collection

Sometimes you accept to do something that is unfamiliar—not painting, but the subject matter. Photographs are hard to come by except from memories, so you buy models (cars [1948 Ford 100] and a Checker) and use a poor quality Google Map, street view—I envision a driver going as fast as possible in a small town in Idaho and it's a tad blurred as a result. The people are even a problem for they lived in a time when photographs were very expensive not to take but to develop. So, you find some and make comps for reference. 

    You start thinking that you can get it finished in a month and then 18+ months later you finish it. It's not that you don't work on it as it is center-stage in the studio and you ponder the composition, the colors, and textures. Did I say the photograph was of poor quality. You use your memory of a by-gone era when there weren't garage doors in place and the siding was asphalt brick. What is enough detail and what is too much? It weighs on you and you paint it several times with varying degrees of success.

    Life happens at the same time, so you edit a book or two, paint only one other painting as you feel guilty if you don't work on THE painting, but it is always in your mind—even in Paris. You don't want to be like Leonardo and not finish commissions after you have worked out all the problems.

    So, it is finished, and you say good-bye to the Grace House and Mom and Pop out to see you off as you have so many times before. Now it is not just a memory, but an object on the wall.

You Can't Go Home

11x14, acrylic on canvas panel, © 2020

Collection of the Artist

When I was a young person, I would visit a friend on his ranch in Idaho. He lived across the way from his grandfather's house, which this is. I was stricken by the beauty of the place. It seemed placid and cool. There were big cottonwood trees behind the house or to the left which shaded the yard. It had a big front yard in which a band of the Blackfoot Tribe would come and camp. On one occasion we went out to the teepees that were in the front yard, and the women took a piece of paper and drew around my brother's hands and around my feet. In about a week we went back and picked up leather gloves with a beaded gauntlet and moccasins with some beaded decoration. The gloves were well used and are gone, but the moccasins I still have in a shadow box in my studio.

    My brother and I went back to the area on a nostalgia trip and it was sad to see the house now. I realized some things are better to remember how they were and not how they are, because you can't go home and find that nothing has changed.

Here is the shadow box with the moccasins, a tomahawk (made in Japan) that I purchased at the Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone Park, an arrow head that my brother found, and a dream catcher made by the woman that put together the box for me. 

Springville Strang House

12x12 oil on panel © 2017

Collection of the Artist

Nostalgia has a fascination as we can look at a scene, seeing how it was over 100 years before. Well, maybe that vision is only on the screen of our mind—at least until we put it in paint on a wooden panel. I have spoken before of taking a class and being productive. It was only once a week, and I had plenty of time to work on projects in between the class times. This was one such project. I had admired the home on 4th North in Springville and did some research as to the owner and construction, 1898. It stands as proud now as when it was new basking in the afternoon, fall light. It was fun to be carried back if only for a while to when there were not houses next door, and the street could be rutted by rain water and wagon wheels.

 

Forgotten Farm: Maple Street, Omaha

8x6 acrylic on panel © 2016

Private Collection

Sometimes you may drive down a street that you have done many 100s of times before, and you notice something out of the corner of your eye—a house nestled in the trees. You stop and take a picture of the event. Then years later you drive down that same street and there is a parking lot and stores where you once saw something terrific that stopped you in your path. So it was with this scene from Nebraska—an old farmstead forgotten by time. I painted it many years after the original event and took it to an exhibit and it sold. I didn't anticipate that someone might interpret the painting back to their reality and want it.

Morning on the Missouri River Flood Plain

11x14, acrylic on panel, © 2007
Private Collections

I went to Little Sioux, Iowa as an overnight security person for Young Women's camp—over 100 girls 12-18. On the drive back the next morning at sunrise the light was so beautiful that everywhere I looked I saw paintings. I had already taken some pictures coming out of the Loess Hills, and when I was on Interstate 29 at 75 mph, I saw this one and could not deny it.

I have also found that I like painting on panels more that canvas. I gesso them myself, and the smooth-toothed texture and firmness of the panel appeals to me.

Scottish Castle

18x24, acrylic on canvas, © 1994

Collection of the Artist

I had painted the painting of the Izatt Cabin in Gem Valley for my wife's parents. Some time later her mother was making sure that her treasures went where she wanted them. She gave the painting to her son. I wanted her to have an original painting, and she had a poor print on the wall of this very Castle in Scotland. I painted this from another reference source and gave it to her. When people came to the home, they would ask, "How did you get something like that?" It seems that original paintings are unusual in peoples' homes.

Grand Teton Barn

16x20, acrylic on canvas, © 1992

Private Collection

One of the most photographed barns in the world is at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This was derived from such a photo.

The Pierce Home on Hamilton

11x14, acrylic on canvas, © 1985

Private Collection

A secretary at the railroad wanted a house portrait in pen and ink or watercolor. I tried to make a drawing but ended up with a painting of her house. I removed some poles and things in the foreground, which is why a photograph did not work. I believe that the house was on east Hamilton Street.

Nebraska Barn

20x16, acrylic on panel, © 1983
Collection of the Artist

The concept was to have a triptych of our Midwest experience. This and the next two are part of that experience.

The painting was derived from a Nebraska promotional photo.

White Iowa Church

20x16, acrylic on panel, © 1983
Collection of the Artist

Marge and I went to visit a friend, Lu, whom we had met while in graduate school at Iowa City. She had moved to Maquoketa, Iowa. After our visit we drove around a bit, and I saw this small white church and took a photo which became this painting.

The concept was to have a triptych of our Midwest experience. This and the previous two are part of that experience.

Utah House

24x36, acrylic on canvas, 1971
Private Collection

This is a commission of a coworker at the State Board of Education, where I was the mail clerk. Her desk was right outside the mail room door. Her husband was working on an MBA from the University of Utah. I painted several watercolors from which she selected this picture. It was from some promotional material from the State of Utah.