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| Flannelbush Road, watercolor on Arches, 16" x 12" | |
This place had a mystery about it. When one pasture was completely mowed, cattle were moved in to clean this one and then another. It keeps the fire fuels under control which I saw during a swiftly moving brush fire nearby and saves the land from overgrazing. The mystery part is no one really thought it was all that beautiful, especially not worthy of a painter's effort. I supposed this is because just over that hill, there is a panoramic view that extends for perhaps 50 miles, with graduating lavender blue mountain mists, a valley, lowing cattle, the checkerboard of crops, etc. But the vision in the painting is one of those places with a little turnout where one could stop and linger and feel the season on your body and listen to the wind. All those times I spent there in non doing was in honor to the simplicity and sanity of Nature. The paved edge in the forefront of this view is lined with overhanging
Flannelbush, a flowering tree that survived the Pleistocene over 15 million years ago. The fire stopped abruptly at the Flannelbush tree.
