Pathways

On Mount Desert Isle there are wonderful paths that roam all through the park.  They serve as ways to get places and as destinations from which to view some of the park's greatest vistas and features.  I became fascinated by the paths themselves with their deeply compacted earth worn bald of grasses and plants from years of nature pilgrims shuffling along them.  Each turn became its own destination with sea smells and sounds of rustling leaves cooly intruding on my concentration for guiding my steps.  Each of these three path paintings had a different story and promise of old secrets if I'd just continue a little further.  Each explores atmosphere, light and color differently because the narrative asked me to.  I am especially drawn to the struggle between the roots and the granite bedrock polished and exposed only by the passing of human feet.

Bar Harbor cliffside path

Bar Harbor approaching the stairs

Bar Harbor slanted stone path

Coggeshell coop

Behind one of the barn buildings at Coggeshell farm is this marvelous old coop or pen,  I could have worked with this in so many ways but the structure of it and the "not quite four-square" nature of everything just wanted to be seen straight on so that it could tell you about its quirks and warps.  Those wonderfully interrupted angular shadows take you right around the corner to the field and tree disappearing in the moisture thickened air.

Coggeshell Farm coop

Coggeshell farm barn and coop

At the two century old Coggeshell farm here in Rhode Island there are a number of outbuildings that wear their age and function like mossy old oaks in a forest.  Nothing here is made to be false or evocative by design.  They simply are evocative and take me quickly to another time and way of life.  I am hypnotized by the textures and the play of shapes and lines creating compositions that are structured and yet richly imperfect.  The colors I see in these planks just need to be coaxed up and out to tell the story of the misty morning and quietness of the landscape out of time.

Coggeshell farm shed doors

coggeshell farm barn in mist

Coggeshell farm rusting implements

Blythewold rock beach

This painting shows some of the wonderful and colorful complexity that has grown on the rocks and debris at the water's edge along the naragansett bay here in Rhode Island.  Blythewold is a marvelous old mansion and grounds that are open to the public and this view was found along their beach.  It is a place full of the cries of gulls and the rushing shushing noise of the constant wave lapping.
The shapes are so rich.  Click on the image and then zoom in on the big rock to see abstracts just jump off the page.

Blythewold Rock beach