"Winter Woes"

I have really been delayed in posting this little note. The weather has been frightful and, of course, the holiday season disrupts ones' working patterns.

Every time I do a winter scene I think about how the technologies associated with coping with a northern climate have changed. Today we have snowblowers and ploughs and the like to deal with the snow that comes our way. This really hasn't been the case for all that long. Back in the early fifties I lived in Walter's Falls just southeast of Owen Sound for a little over a year. Actually, that was the longest I stayed in one place until my high school years. Winter in Walter's Falls was beyond belief as any longtime resident of the leeward side of Lake Huron will attest. The little one room school was a couple of blocks outside of town and walking to it in the dead of winter along a narrow road was like walking through a white tunnel.

It was stunningly beautiful but the question remains. How did the residents of this area cope with such massive amounts of snow? As a kid, one didn't concern oneself with such issues so I don't think I ever really knew. There is no doubt that it would have been a huge challenge. Technology has provided the answers but, as with most of the advances we have seen over the last decades, these solutions have come at quite a cost. It was a slippery slope, so to speak, to globalization, climate change, corporate domination of our daily lives, the breakdown of traditional family values and so on and so on. Maybe it would have been better to cope the way we used to cope.

I will admit that I am very fond of winter scenes. They lend themselves beautifully to all of those I goals I have for my paintings including decorative patterning, and the flattening of images into a narrow space. I hope you like "Winter Woes"

Now the push is on to get ready for "The Artist Project" in Toronto in the middle of February. The new painting, "Back Forty" has to be finished for that show.

Remember that all you have to do to see the full image is to go to "Gallery" and click on "Paintings for Sale".