Inspirations and art!

So nothing like going to pick up paintings from a group show and find that one has been replaced with a nice check :-) Seems my "Tobacco Barn" sold at the month long regional art show at the Mims Gallery at Wesleyan College (NC). Very cool!

Tobacco Barn- A 16 x 20 pastel by M Theresa Brown 

So where do artists find inspiration? I took this photo frpm my photo after a huge thunderstorm had wreaked havoc on the area. I pulled by car over as to my right was the golden light of the sunset, and to my left was the dark, ominous gray of a storm loving east. But oh what it left behind! The bright arch of a half moon rainbow (which I could not capture with my phone camera) and the tops of these trees touched with gold. 

And finally, we returned from 2 weeks of shows in the NC mountains near the towns of  Blowing Rock and Boone. Who has not traveled the Blue Ridge Parkway and savored it's coolness and breathtaking views? Sometimes I think the mountains are in my DNA. I know they are in my ancestral past as well as my past (The Catskill,  Berkshire and Adirondack mountains of NY) The sea also calls to me but it is different. With the ocean it is the sounds and rhythms of waves and seagulls. Mesmerizing.  With the ancient Blue Ridge mountains, there is more-the winds, cool breezes, wildflowers and above all else, the stunning vistas where I stand and gaze at every detail of range after range of mountains. It is easy to get lost in them.  

I love being inspired!

Painting the Past

NC tobacco bar by M Theresa Brown. Pastel 16 x 20

All through the south, down any country road, are the remains of tobacco barns. They all go back to the time when tobacco was king and the best paying job in the south for the average worker and teenager!
Some, like this one that I created in pastels, are the oldest and made from logs. Others are cinder block, tile and wood siding covered with tar paper. All were built under or in groves of huge shading oak trees. 
Talk to someone about "putting up tobacco" and you will hear of one of the hottest, dirtiest jobs a kid could have over the summer!
As artists, it's important to recognize areas and structures as history and although I am not, by nature, a landscape artist, even I could not resist painting the echoes of history while watching the play of light and shadows across this old time capsule!