Sunday, November 1, 2015

Road Trip Recollections of Offerle, Kansas, and the Limitations of Language and Paint

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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