This is a new painting, a 16″ by 20″ canvas, that I am calling Humble Home. There’s a real crispness in the color of this piece, both in the clarity of the hues and in the way they react to one another. It has, for lack of a better term, a real snap to it.
The form of this painting, the lone house under a huge dome of sky, is one that I have revisited several times over the years. The idea of a lone home standing against a vast sky always stirs emotion in me. Their is a sense of grandeur and power in such a sky that gives one perspective on their own place and influence in this world. However highly we esteem ourselves, we are indeed tiny before the sky and all its forces, both seen and unseen. Thus the title, Humble Home.
But while the house here is humbled small beneath the forceful sky, it is no less confident of what it is at heart. Humble does not mean a lack of confidence or a form of servility. It simply signifies a knowledge of things greater than one’s self. The house here speaks of a solidness of belief in one’s self and their place , however humble, in the great scheme of the universe. It has purpose.
It brings to mind the words from Ecclesiastes, or the Byrds if you prefer: To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
Turn, turn, turn…
Redtree Times 
I love traveling in less-populated areas and seeing occasional homes framed against the horizon. It’s possible to see the house as small and insignificant against the grandeur of the land and sky, but on the other hand – without the house, the scope and scale of the natural world isn’t so immediately apparent.
In that sense, the painting reminds me of the famous “Rubin vase”, the optical illusion that shows either a vase or two faces. Sometimes the land and sky predominate, sometimes the house and tree.
You’re right. Sometimes we do need to have that contrast between the large and small to get a true sense of what really is.
I particularly like this one. To me the house says solitude rather than loneliness.
To me, as well. I try to point out often that solitude does not equate to loneliness.