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| Large Puddle, Offerle, Kansas; US Highway 50 acrylic on ragboard panel 10 15/16 x 40 1/4 x 2 7/8 inches |
I’ve been through Offerle, Kansas before. On this trip, I
started documenting US Highway 50 in Ocean City, Maryland. From there, I headed west photographing every
town along the way. Even though it rained for several days, it is hard not be
drawn to water. I stopped the car and stood as close as I could to the large
puddle. I say puddle because it didn’t greet me as I rolled through town on a
previous trip. However, the grasses that grow in the heart of the depression,
indicate that it can often be a captivating place for moving water.
I’ve heard that a picture can paint a thousand words. I must
say, that has seldom been my experience. It has never left me feeling chatty. I
always seemed to be completely blank when it came time to explain the why of
what I painted during college critiques. As I looked at this most recent
painting, I found I had nothing to say, and wound up looking at Wikipedia for
inspiration. About all it offered was the name of Lawrence Offerle as one of
the settlers that founded the town in 1876. The last census placed the
population at 199. Over time, that figure has not varied much. It appears to
have always been a small town surround by sky.
If painting can paint a word or two, that language is going
to be limited to visual symbols. That means painting is just a mouth full of
nouns that can never form a sentence. Without the ability to form a sentence,
painting can never be narrative. The idea that there is a kind of painting that
can tell a story is fiction. Although painting can be very good at describing
things we can see, it can’t carry on a conversation. If a painting is of a
woman handing an apple to a man, it can say “woman handing apple to man.” It
cannot say “Genesis, God, Eden, or the fall of man.” The painting is just a
painting. The story comes with us. That is why the meaning behind an
archaeological site can be so hard to decipher. If we were not the Egyptians,
all we’re going to see are rows of people, birds and cats standing in strange
positions. A painting of little moving people is likely to be described as
narrative. But, how does that differ from a painting of cattle grazing a
rolling hillside? The one thing narrative paintings seem to have in common is
the ingredient of people. I guess that differentiation does tell us something.
We only think people are important enough to inform us. The rest of nature
doesn’t really seem to matter. If we insist that one kind of painting can tell
stories, then we must extend speech to all painting, because little moving
people can’t say any more than a painting of a rotting apple in a basket. If a
painting is of little moving people, all it can say is “little moving people.”
The idea that an angry chicken shrunk them comes from us.
I thought I might try to describe another scene of Offerle in
writing. Although it could take a month or more to paint that scene, it would
in fact be an easier thing to do. Nothing captures the moment better than a
picture. But, human thought is not a painting or a snapshot. To tackle the
thought process requires language. The painting of the puddle could never
reveal any daydreams, or say that it was just one of many stops along the
highway as I made my way across the nation.
Around a slight bend, a stone marker reads WELCOME TO
OFFERLE. The supporting posts for the horizontal sign are also stone. On the
left one, EDWARDS is vertically written. The stone post to the right chimes in
with the word COUNTY placing the town on the western flank of Kansas. Gray
grass is littered with a green touch of spring. A surviving snowbank remains
cradled in a depression by the shoulder of the road. Behind the sign, a display
of farm equipment covers a large patch of grass. It is not hard to tell that
the machines are from the past, exposure has left the paint extremely weathered.
An elongated building of corrugated steel resembles an arena. Three out
buildings are painted white. A two story house with a porch faces the highway. It too is white with a roof of green singles.
The sky is light. The trees are bare. Three utility poles string a strand of
wire out to the highway. Out in front of the house, two rows of junipers, browned
by the bite of winter, separate the yard from the sporadic flow of traffic. Although
radiant at the edge, a distant water tower is hollowed out by shadow. A small
portion of the road momentarily rolls out of view. A knitted thicket of trees and
utility poles hides behind the massive colonnade of a grain elevator. On that
side of the highway, there’s predominance of metal buildings in colors of steel
gray, pale ochre and cream. Yellow canisters shine bright in a field where
nearly all the other propane tanks are painted white. There’s also a building
of brick with a low pitched roof that could be a school or church. A radio
tower would pierce the sky if it were closer, but at this distance, it is a
faint line rising out of an industrial horizon. The highway is a polished gray.
The white line that separates the shoulder from the rest of the road occupies
two thirds of the pavement. The yellow line that divides the highway, merges
into a ridge of weeds and a rail line of steel.
What I tried to describe, reads right to left because the welcome
sign was the reason for my stop. If I painted what I tried to describe, it
would probably read in the opposite direction, with the pale pavement sailing
towards a distant water tower. However the remains of a bright white snowbank
may have countered the pull. I have never really cared to address the question
of balance. My only concern has been to give voice to the entirety of a
location. The importance of angles and focal points can be settled by those interested
in composition. The idea of time and place is easier to see without the overlay
of artificial restrictions. Although a little long, what was written didn’t
begin to capture what could be grasped in an instant with a painting or
snapshot. I found I could not describe what I saw with any accuracy. Most of the
detail had to be deleted to remain readable. Any image that fills your head
cannot be what I saw as I stopped the car to take a picture. In this sense, a
picture can paint a thousand words, but seeing does not begin to be a thing
called language. Although I may be able to paint the brightness of spring, the
wind can never whisper or reveal the origins of a town named after Lawrence
Offerle.
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