Autumn at the Basin
Oil on linen | 12×16 inches | 2023
On a trip to Franconia Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, I painted the Basin Falls, an ancient waterfall that has slowly carved out a half dome shape out of the rock above it. Over the course of the week I was there, the leaves were fast falling off the trees, so this painting became, by the end, a memory of the peak foliage I had seen when I began. The Basin is a site that receives a lot of foot traffic, especially during peak foliage in the fall, and when I was there I saw families and couples come and go, usually only able to spend ten or fifteen minutes before the needs of one or another of their party forced them to move on. One of the blessings of being a painter is that you can spend a long time meditating on the beauty of a particular place when most other people can only spend a few minutes at a time. I suppose that could be thought of as a selfish aspect of painting, but it’s also a service that painters provide to their audience— they spend the time out in nature observing something where their audience can only afford to spend a short time, and are then able to provide a durable, physical representation of the memory and impression that a place might make on the viewer in an instant.
This painting is sold framed in a solid oak frame, made by Dard Hunter Studios in Ohio.
Oil on linen | 12×16 inches | 2023
On a trip to Franconia Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, I painted the Basin Falls, an ancient waterfall that has slowly carved out a half dome shape out of the rock above it. Over the course of the week I was there, the leaves were fast falling off the trees, so this painting became, by the end, a memory of the peak foliage I had seen when I began. The Basin is a site that receives a lot of foot traffic, especially during peak foliage in the fall, and when I was there I saw families and couples come and go, usually only able to spend ten or fifteen minutes before the needs of one or another of their party forced them to move on. One of the blessings of being a painter is that you can spend a long time meditating on the beauty of a particular place when most other people can only spend a few minutes at a time. I suppose that could be thought of as a selfish aspect of painting, but it’s also a service that painters provide to their audience— they spend the time out in nature observing something where their audience can only afford to spend a short time, and are then able to provide a durable, physical representation of the memory and impression that a place might make on the viewer in an instant.
This painting is sold framed in a solid oak frame, made by Dard Hunter Studios in Ohio.
Oil on linen | 12×16 inches | 2023
On a trip to Franconia Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, I painted the Basin Falls, an ancient waterfall that has slowly carved out a half dome shape out of the rock above it. Over the course of the week I was there, the leaves were fast falling off the trees, so this painting became, by the end, a memory of the peak foliage I had seen when I began. The Basin is a site that receives a lot of foot traffic, especially during peak foliage in the fall, and when I was there I saw families and couples come and go, usually only able to spend ten or fifteen minutes before the needs of one or another of their party forced them to move on. One of the blessings of being a painter is that you can spend a long time meditating on the beauty of a particular place when most other people can only spend a few minutes at a time. I suppose that could be thought of as a selfish aspect of painting, but it’s also a service that painters provide to their audience— they spend the time out in nature observing something where their audience can only afford to spend a short time, and are then able to provide a durable, physical representation of the memory and impression that a place might make on the viewer in an instant.
This painting is sold framed in a solid oak frame, made by Dard Hunter Studios in Ohio.