The Hay-wagons Don't Come Here Anymore

                                             An original casein painting, on illustration board
                                             11 X 14 inches
                                             
                                                This painting is in a private collection now


                                                     ( click on image to enlarge )

     My last posting on this blog. was about a casein painting ( Racing The Hoop ),
and while I was looking at it again I was reminded of other paintings in the files, which
were done in that medium, that I still enjoy using, and which I should use more often.

    I have not seen this painting for years.  The photo above was a snapshot which was
emailed to me a couple of years ago, so the photographic quality is low, including some
light-reflections in the image.  However it was interesting to see the picture again. The
painting seems to have held up fairly well over the years, but it could use restoration
touches in some areas.  Perhaps I should have used a bit more protective varnish on
the painting, or else had it framed it under glass.

    The subject of the painting was an old barn which I used in a number of different
paintings, in a variety of different mediums.  Looking back through this blog, I see that
I have previously posted a picture of one of those paintings, done in transparent water-
colors, as a winter landscape, when the old barn was dressed in snow.   That painting
was called Awaiting The Thaw, and it may still be available, but I would have to check
to make sure.

    That old barn represented a period in America which we all tend to look back on
with a good deal of nostalgia, the time when our country was still an agrarian society,
with millions of small, subsistence farms.  In those days the barn would have been
echoing with the sounds of horses and squeaking wagon-wheels, as the farmer and
his sons filled the loft with loose hay, to provide winter fodder for their livestock.

    Those days are long gone now.  Even as far back as the late 1950's and early
1960's, when I painted that old barn, it was no longer in use, as its builders designed
it to be used.  Horses and horse-drawn farm-implements were things of the past,
and the tractors which replaced horse-power, often did not find accommodations
in old barns.  The small, family farms were already being absorbed into the large,
mono-culture agriculture businesses we have today.

     The barn was destined to be demolished and the surrounding land redeveloped
by an expanding university.  Nothing ever stays the same, of course.  Change is
inevitable, but I am often left with the question of whether or not some of our
redevelopments are actually true improvements.

Racing The Hoop

                                           An original casein painting, on heavy watercolor board
                                           20 X 24 inches
                                                     This painting is in a private collection now

                                                      ( click on image to enlarge )

     The past several postings on this blog have featured paintings that included birds
which live on or around water.  Birds have always served as subjects for artists, from as
far back as the frescoes and wall paintings of the ancient world, right up to the paintings
of the modern masters.  Waterfowl in particular, both domesticated and wild, have always
played a big role in our lives, as a food source which also had beauty worthy to be painted
and enjoyed.  That memory reminded me of this painting, from several decades or more
ago, of a boy and his pet duck.  There must be millions of paintings of boys with their pet
dogs, but the boy and bird relationship is probably much less frequently portrayed.

     Most people are aware of the fact that animals and birds imprint on humans, if they are
raised by people from birth, and they may often become inseparable from their human
parents.  I had an aunt who once had some geese on their farm, including a gander which
was a gentle pet with her, but which was an aggressive watch-dog with anyone else.  And
I recall an elderly, neighborhood couple in the city, who had a pet duck which patrolled
the inside perimeter of their fenced yard, and quacked with territorial authority at anyone
who passed by.on the sidewalk.

     This hectic electronic age, which rules our lives, may make it difficult for some people
to think back to a much simpler time ( even before radio ) when children's toys were
nothing like the expensive electronic gadgets which kids play with these days. Hoop
rolling was a popular game, which most likely would have occurred often, on fields
next to schoolhouses such as the one in this painting.  I chose to depict the little, frame
schoolhouse where a famous,New England school-teacher once taught children, before
the American revolution.  ( I hope the school still survives.)  That teacher gained fame
because of what he said, shortly before the British hanged him as a spy.  His statement
was, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country!", and his name was
Nathan Hale.  Perhaps Nathan's patriotic words were echoing in the boy's mind, as he
and his duck raced the hoop down the hill.


    The photo of the painting is old and blurred, but perhaps it still conveys the essential
elements of the diagonal actions in the composition, intended to provide a feeling of the
movements of the wind, the clouds, and the boy with his duck.