The Road Home - SOLD

The Road Home

24"x18"

acrylic on canvas

SOLD

I realized that I haven't given much attention on canvas to Montana's rivers yet...expect more to come!

I should mention, by the way, that I have an overwhelming passion for American Transcendentalist writings (as well as the work of geniuses like Wordsworth and Coleridge, who were hugely influential on the philosophy of the Transcendentalists). I can't get enough of it.

I see what was, and is, and will abide;

Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;

The Form remains, the Function never dies;

While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,

We Men, who in our morn of youth defied

The elements, must vanish;—be it so!

Enough, if something from our hands have power

To live, and act, and serve the future hour;

And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,

Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,

We feel that we are greater than we know.

-William Wordsworth, "Valedictory Sonnet to the River Duddon"

West End

West End

18"x24"

acrylic on canvas

$305 + $28 shipping (contact)

I've lamented a lot on this blog about the changing face of my hometown...I've never liked change much, especially when it involves farmland and rolling prairie being replaced with apartments and cookie-cutter mansion communities. One of the best parts about growing up in Billings was the rural quality to the city (despite its being the most populated city in Montana)...you could drive for 5 or 10 minutes and wind up amidst farmland and undeveloped fields. You could actually find some solitude in a relatively 'big' city. Piece by piece I'm seeing familiar barns and century-old farmhouses being torn down as the West End of Billings keeps expanding outward.

When we were young we used to walk out in those fields
And run forever in the backyard woods
Now the old trails disappear in neighborhoods
With streets named after what's gone for good

-Storyhill, "Paradise Lost"

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Frosty Morning

Frosty Morning

16"x20"

acrylic on canvas

$195 + $25 shipping (contact)

Autumn certainly hasn't been shy about arriving this year. It's been so windy at times that I've been covering the chicken coop up at night with a tarp (that's right, we have 2 chickens in a home-made coop in our backyard!).

I love Fall. I love the colors and the crispness in the air and getting to put on layers of scarves. I especially love how the smell of leaves on the ground can transport me back in time to days when I would jump into a pile of leaves. When did I stop jumping?

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

-John Keats, "Ode to Autumn"

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