Indiana Wesleyan University Art + Design

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Saturday, July 19, 2008

Growing up

                      
 " Cows and Mayflies"    11x14 ,  acrylic on canvas, unfinished      
     
   As we get older there is  a yearning to revisit the places and people of our youth. I have been trying to do it through  several paintings I am working on. I was raised in a small town in Upstate New York.... actually two towns so close together we called them by one name Cato - Meridian.  Nestled in the northern hills of the Finger Lakes, it was rural farms, glacial eskers and drumlins. The old Erie Canal and Algonquin Indians left footprints there. Trout streams and warm water rivers drew liquid lines between the hills.  I loved the land and water there. 
       This is another painting from my memories of those places. Warners farm was just down the road from our home.  My older brother worked for them... I helped them bail hay a few times. The cows had a good view of the lake from the hills where they grazed .... Otter Lake... I  felt the lake  belonged to me simply because I spent more time in it, on it and next to it then anybody else.