As I wrote in a post last week, the idea of home has been a large component of my recent work. For some, it is a physical place and for others it is simply the sense of being at home, a feeling that may be prompted by something that triggers memories of a time when they felt at ease and completely secure. It’s probably different for many people and I’m not sure it matters how one defines home for themselves.
For me, the important part is that the idea of home is a universal theme, one that we all identify with in our own lives. We all seek the safety and comfort of home however we define it. And it’s this seeking for something that is so vaguely defined that interests me as an artist. It’s such a strong drive in us that it raises many different images in our minds.
This new painting, which I’m calling Led Home, deals with this idea of home as an elusive quest. The house stands in the distance with a road leading to it through a field of golden grass. Above, the sunlight breaks through the broken sky to act as a sort of beacon guding the seeker forward. The tree and the path in the foreground are almost in shadow as though the discovery of home signals a transition from darkness into light.
The house, like many of those used in my work, is without windows or doors. I’m never positive why this is so but perhaps, given the short expalnation above, it is because it is representing something vaguely indefinable, soemthing we can’t really see in full detail in our minds. I don’t know for sure– that just came to me as I wrote this.
This is just one way of looking at this piece. How I see it this morning at first glance. Perhaps it will change in definition for me with time but I doubt it– those first glances tell a lot about a piece and tend to hold the most truth.
The painting is a 10″ by 30″ work on canvas.
Redtree Times 
When I saw the new painting this morning, I expanded the image before reading your words. My immediate response was positive and visceral, and this is what I thought:
My gosh! A grain elevator! And those fields are perfect.
Apparently you can take the girl out of the midwest, but she’s going to see silos and grain elevators forever.
It does look to me exactly like the elevators I grew up with, but here’s the delicious irony. Whenever I go back to Iowa, or Kansas or Nebraska, the first icons to appear above the horizon always are the silos and elevators. That’s how you know you’ve come home. 😉
That’s an interesting take and one that’s every bit as viable as my own. I’m always pleased when someone sees something in my work that relates in a way that is specific to their own experience, even if it is not part of my own.
Thanks!
Soon as I looked at it, I immediately thought of the weary traveller coming to the end of the journey back to home. Almost there, nearly ready to walk in the door and relax and have a sleep after a long trip.
I love it, its definately got its own feeling and I suppose many interpretations about it.
Thanks. I am enjoying this piece very much as it sits in the studio. There is a restful feeling, as you describe, mixed with wistful longing that makes it very easy to for my eyes to stop on it’s surface.