Oklahoma Homestead

"Oklahoma Homestead," 16" x 20" acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas

The "home place." "Homestead."

Words that take on more meaning that just "home." They speak of memories, generations, families, hard work, history, roots in the land, landscapes, rural living. And certainly of life in Territorial Oklahoma.

Those were some of my thoughts as I undertook this painting, the largest I've done in a long while, and certainly the largest in acrylics. 

Again, it is a work in complementary colors, blues and yellows, oranges and purples. You will notice that in all my recent work. I don't know why, except it just seems natural. There is also a healthy dose of earth colors--umbers, siennas, and oxides, which is fitting given the subject of homestead.

Soon to be exhibited, beginning in Paseo Arts District's First Friday, November 5, art walk in my November show at In Your Eye Studio & Gallery.

Six days til Christmas - homestead

Homestead, watercolor

Six days til Christmas - "I'll be home for Christmas."
Homestead--where you grew up? Where you returned to, or yearn to? Where you remember?
Urban folks don't much use this word, but it's common in rural areas, for good reasons, especially in Oklahoma
In Old English, before 1000 A.D., it was  "hamstede"-- "home, town, village," from home and stead (locality). In the English colonies in the 1690s, it was "a lot of land adequate for the maintenance of a family. The  1862 Homestead Act, designed to help white Americans push further west, defined a homestead as 160 acres. The verb was first recorded in 1872.
Don't you imagine Jesus had a homestead in Nazareth, a poor little rural village?

Five days 'til Christmas--alone

Abandoned Oklahoma homestead, 10 by 13 watercolor, from a photo

Gloomy day, windy, cold, a time to remember what it's like to be alone, alone as an abandoned homestead rotting away.
There are ghosts, memories, sadnesses, regrets, all awakened when you come across such a ruin, a metaphor for broken lives.
In the midst of winter, a time of death, it is good to think about being alone. It helps you to value being with family, loved ones, friends at Christmas. 
Is that not what Christmas is all about--not being alone any more? For there to be a time of joy and togetherness, there will also be a counterpart, gloom and loneliness.
Yet as we gather, knowing we need each other, don't forget those who are alone, for whom here in Oklahoma and around the world, there is unending gloom, people who are rotting away, abandoned--for whom there is no togetherness. 
Is not what Christmas also is all about--bringing hope to those most in need? Was that not what the original "Christmas" was all about?

Compost and watercolor journeys--part III

Alone

These are the most irregularly sized paintings. I notice that they're all about journeys alone or with partners, telling stories with unfinished conclusions, something increasingly on my mind, growing out of the compost of years and experiments in painting. 
The top one, painted a year ago,  is the largest, and wouldn't fit on the scanner at almost 6" by 14", so a little of the left side is cropped off.

Autumn of the years

The man with the dog is the largest and  close to standard size, a little bigger than 5" by 7". Notice a similar one at 5" by 5", both inspired by a man with a cane I saw walking in Hafer Park last year, once with a dog. 
Partners in travel become increasingly more important and "Sunday Communion" at about 5" by 7" and "Down the Beach" at 4" by 4 1/2" reflect that mood. 
Finally, the blurry background  of "Soul Mates"  is another experiment in impressionism about 5" by 8", and  the blurred foreground of "Homestead" at about 4" by 7"but then, the entire future is blurry
Irregular sizes and subjects that I all hope to get framed if I can find approximate sizes. An artists' journey. 

Alone

Sunday Communion

Down the Beach

Soul Mates

Homestead