Downtown by the Courthouse, Union, Missouri, US Highway 50

Downtown by the Courthouse, Union, Missouri, US Highway 50, 2019
acrylic on four shaped ragboard panels, artist-made frames, 6 9/16 x 42 1/8 x 1 15/16 inches

In the fall of 2014, I hit the road to cross the continent on U.S. Highway 50. Beginning in Ocean City, Maryland, I headed west in the direction of California. Traversing the midsection of America, embraced the states of Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California. I intended to photograph the towns and cities along the way. In addition to the towns and cities, the plan was to capture the topography of natural places, the rivers, plains, mountain ranges, deserts, scrublands and forests that occupy the continental expanse between the waves of opposing oceans. The direction of my journey mirrored the growth and expansion of the United States. Although I never gave it that much thought, the age of many of communities reflected that history. I just wanted to chronicle the American scene from the vantage point of a single highway.

 

Not long into the trip, I began to understand that I wouldn’t be able to account for every single town along the way. Some communities didn’t exist on the map, while others were simply missed because I failed to see that I’d driven through them. Sometimes I turned around to correct the mistake, and sometimes I didn’t. Without the abstraction of a map, it is hard to determine what is or is not a town.

  

I never fully expected to document everything along the way. A full accounting of the towns swallowed by cities would have required getting on and off freeways trying to find the heart of particular places in the middle of smog infested sprawl. That level of commitment would have added a lot of time to the trip, consuming funds that I couldn’t afford to spend. Wandering through congested intersections trying to find community cores long lost to the circumference of cities, probably would have destroyed the feeling of freedom that comes from chasing down a horizon. Union, Missouri was the first town far enough removed from the stuff of St. Louis for me to want to resume photographing the trip. On another day, mood and atmosphere may have changed everything. As I recall, I was quite a way out before I recovered the mood of solitude attuned to the rhythm of the highway.

 

As I considered my journey, I noticed that I shot very few places as a single photograph. That should not be surprising. I long ago disregarded the concept of the composed. It seldom got at the nature of place. Photographing immense concrete canisters half cast in shadow can capture a stunning array of shades in rolling forms of architecture, but it doesn’t say anything about the surrounding town, or how those lofty grain elevators relate to the rumble of moving freight trains. The proportions that shaped rectangular framing when artists routinely painted portraits of aristocratic families are poorly matched to the task of embracing the geography of travel. What oncoming town can properly be defined without the horizon? How do you fit the tree lined streets that profile an interlocking sky of protruding rooftops, power-lines, steeples, and the metallic gleam of a solitary water tower into a space designed to house a family portrait?

The history of Western art didn’t have much of anything to say about the landscape in the beginning. Painting was primarily used to depict mythology, Biblical scenes, and aristocracy. The landscape was rarely subject matter in and of itself. When it did appear, it was usually part of a larger story, like the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. Since Biblical and mythological events could not be observed, the participants and scenery had to be imagined. Models standing in for gods and heroic figures created staging. Within that space, it was natural enough to make the leading man or woman the center of attention. By trying to drive the viewer’s gaze to the main character through devices such as perspective and lighting, a focal point was born and composition became an important part of making art.

 

As my mind rummages through images from art history, what I discover are configurations of leading figures and secondary cast members. Composition was designed with people in mind. Hierarchy, the concept of thinking that some people are more important than others became a way of portraying everything around us. Flowers arrangements involving bottles, pots and saucers, shouldn’t have a need for one of the containers to stand out on the table. Dominance in a painting of fresh cut flowers has nothing to do with seeing. Being human, our egocentric thoughts consume our perspective. It doesn’t matter where we’re looking, the rules remain the same. We treat scenery as though it had human consciousness. Barn, horse and tree are crammed into a compositional huddle that resembles yet another family snapshot. A concrete silo is framed as though it would know how to pose for a portrait. What gets lost in painting a mountain range is that its granite mass sat upon the plain long before portraits were ever conceived of Jesus or a king. Earth and sky and everything in between should not be confined to the interior dimensions that were historically used for painting people. The great outdoors is defined by atmospheric space, where distance is the measurement of shades shifting to the lackluster blue of a warped horizon. For those attuned to the highway, the profile of sites resides within an overwhelming sense of atmosphere. What I am trying to say is that the subject matter of any vista is always space. The thing that makes a landscape real is the absence of a stage. The sky overrides the notion of any man-made thing being equivalent to a king. You may be thrilled by highlights on a silo, but the thing that dominants all other things is an atmospheric weight that can’t be defined by a pose or profile. How can you encompass the brilliance of sunlight or shepherd the will of the wind? Human thoughts of dominance have very little to do with the buoyancy of a blue horizon. The embrace of landscape is the manifestation of space.

 

In my time at college, there was never any history given for the origins of composition. No one tried to explain why a focal point should apply to rudiments of a horizon. It was simply understood that painting required designing. Straight up observation was never enough. The experience of everyday seeing couldn’t be conveyed through painting. The sight of turned up earth and silo was not enough to make a painting great. That kind of experience couldn’t be understood as being any good without the concept of dominance being brought into the picture. If you think scenery needs to be tweaked or rearranged for it to be compelling, I hesitate to say that’s entirely wrong. I’ve never been interested in depicting people or painting items placed on a table. The life I enjoy has been about the highway. The trill of weekend drives inspired me to take up painting when I was a child. My perspective comes from a need to embrace the depth of perception seen while gazing out at a horizon. That need could be just as flawed as the compositional thinking that I believe to be so misleading. My view could be derived from shyness. I don’t like crowds. I seem to need a lot of space to feel at ease. Because of that fact, I may not be drawn to patterns that mirror the structure of social events. Still, my human intuition is probably closer to the makeup of nature because it doesn’t require the artist to decide what part of the scenery is supremely meaningful. What I see is exactly as it should be. I can’t imagine making any of it better. In that respect, I could be religious. I feel much smaller than the things I try to describe. Sky as sky cannot be shaped into anything greater by adulations of paint.

 

I’ve taken enough photographs to know, that two consecutive shots of any place provide enough perspective to establish a sense of direction. Within that framing, you’ll probably find something that resembles a composition. That amount of space embraces something that could be called delineation. Just like when trying to draw attention to the countenance of a king, there is a pull which does the same kind of thing. The expanse of consecutive snapshots is filled with a perspective that can’t be denied, drawing the viewer into the scenery. The difference being that the viewer gets to choose what destination he or she is drawn to. Painting is based on observation. The choice to delineate or compose is a matter of perspective. A composition tries to make it plain, that a specific person or thing is the most crucial part of a painting. Delineation doesn’t comprehend individual significance. Because it knows everything is connected, its devotion of focus extends everywhere. In composition, the delivery of space happens on a stage. That might be fine for a literary production or family snapshot, but it doesn’t begin to comprehend what it means to be outside. Composition comes with the limitations of a box. It can’t hold very much. That rationing shapes what we select to see. The isolation of prominent sites is forced upon us. Snapshots taken on vacation seldom do the trick. The singularity of a mountain or tower can’t begin to tap into the essence of memory, because that isn’t what we see standing where the latitude of sight bleeds into breadth of yawning atmosphere. Compositional framing can’t fully embrace the meaning of place, because it tries to apply the standards of indoor habitat to an environment truly beyond those dimensions.

 

If two snapshots are enough to establish some kind of connection, why do so many of my paintings rely on a span of three or more photographs? I hadn’t thought about it before. But on this trip, I began to realize that what I sought for so many years was something greater than the delineation of space. Although the combination of two snapshots is similar to composition, I seem to follow the advancing camera until it has moved through enough frames to engage a visual position. That doesn’t mean that the description of a place should be thought of as fixed or definitive. Within the range of any location, there are limitless stories to tell. When the advancing camera stops, it just means that I think I’ve captured enough to justify suspension. Nothing in that says this is it. There could be more. There could be so much more. It just signifies that I hit the first frame that secures the character of place.

 

In embracing the landscape, I ended up chasing something that could be called narrative. My childhood imagination always recited a dialog of sites on the way to any horizon. That innate nature survived to thrive into adulthood. I see a parking lot with its shops and laundry mat as a place of exploration. Having that kind of reaction, every site can’t help but feel like it should be a feature piece dedicated to the thrill of living. Perhaps what I do could be described as a kind of journalism. There is a story to tell, but the facts matter. A couple of snapshots may pinpoint a place, but the word on the street calls for a broader perspective.

The two center panels depict the courthouse. Any two consecutive images taken
with a camera, will feel quite a bit like a composition. 

In my painting of Union, Missouri, the two center panels depict the courthouse. The view in and of itself could be complete. There is enough perspective to determine that the courthouse is part of a location. Without that added space, the building would be just another architectural headshot, a postcard kind of thing without the heft of gravity pulling everything together. Composition seldom has enough perspective to convey navigation and place. If those components are missing, it is difficult to see the terrain that makes up mountain, town or valley. And without terrain, can a landscape painting really be aligned with the land it was intended to describe?

 

Standing near the Oak intersection of Locust Street, I shot beyond the courthouse. That extension enables the viewer to be like a pedestrian. If you can visually move around, frozen moments begin to melt away into a tale of exploration. Exploration requires time, and with that time, painting can become a living thing. It can describe blue sky, ornamental trees, a courthouse surrounded by street lamp banners, a neon sign, fluorescent lights, a shadowed wall, a window encased display of a wedding dress, and the indication of fall where changing leaves succumb to the grip of October. Seeing is the story of being there. It’s often been said, that a picture paints a thousand words. If that’s true, and I believe it is, most of the words are going to be nouns and adjectives. Although painting can’t explain, it’s great at illustration.

 

I hesitate to say that my painting could be narrative. Because the idea behind narrative painting troubles me, I’ve got some explaining to do. The category as defined is deceptive. It leads people to think that a certain kind of painting has the capacity to explain the action of unknown events. That’s what storytelling does and stories can’t be told without language. Perhaps, narrative painting should be defined as the depiction of an incident so widely known that it wouldn’t need a picture to visualize it. A canvas of the Last Supper may make a great painting, but it doesn’t reveal anything that wasn’t already known. The story it tells was already in the head of the person seeing it. I know I’m stating the obvious, but the statement should make it plain that all painting is the same. It can depict, but it can’t carry on a conversation. A painting of an apple can say apple, because the viewer already knows what an apple is. Without prior knowledge, the Last Supper is just a painting of a dinner party. No amount of paint could ever betray the middle figure as Jesus. Just like with the example of the apple, the information was already known.

 

Now that the Last Supper has been exposed as being basically the same as the Apple, we can go on to say that although painting can’t do storytelling, it has the capacity to recite the details of sight, which words simply cannot handle. When writing about sky, the concept is so ethereal that the only the word that can really describe sky is sky. As an atmospheric noun, there are never enough adjectives to color in transitions of blue. The nouns and adjectives of routine seeing are so numerous that if they were all written down to describe a place, the ability to envision it would be consumed by chaos. Language simply cannot deliver all the details my painting provides and remain unbroken. Any attempt would require inventory lists, itemizing details and relationships which could never be arranged in a sequence that could be read from any starting point, in any direction, and be completely understood in an instant. That is the domain of paint. When depicted as imagery, nouns and adjectives are not restricted by the linear constraints of language.

 

Painting can easily relay the information of sight. In that respect, it exceeds language. But it can’t examine love, fashion a plot, or casually say, I think it’s going to rain tomorrow. So in what respect could my painting offer more than a description? A lot of it has to do with the span of perspective. By going beyond parameters of composition, the viewer gets to choose how to investigate the setting. With that choice, the viewer stops being a bystander. Because Union, Missouri is presented in rolling sequence, the navigation of place happens naturally. In the concrete details of the tree lined streets, there is a spirit of recognition. It is an inventory list of routine details, which in many cases the viewer didn’t realize had any clout. Responding to frozen moments inhibits reaction time long enough to see beyond banality. It may be a scene that the viewer wouldn’t normally like, but being anywhere comes with a collection of memories. In the depiction of a particular place, it is the act of navigation that grabs the imagination. When vision is painted as the tool that it really is, it can’t help but fuel connections. Getting anywhere is dependent upon information that painting frequently excludes. By profiling sight over the composed focus of isolation, scenery begins to tell a story. I have no idea what the story will convey. But within the rudiments of a small town intersection, there are impressions that ignite the recognition of having seen this kind of place before. Because I’ve done nothing to influence your perspective, the connections you see will be entirely your own. In my imagination, as far back as I can remember, I was a travel guide and explorer. When I realized that nearly everything I saw went well beyond the window of composition, I changed the way I painted. Openness without focus was so much closer to the navigation of getting around, that many could feel a connection to forlorn parking lots. As a kind of travel guide, I see no distinction between barnyards and national parks. I paint moments that everyone knows. By painting the routine passage of time, I capture the beauty of what it means to see. Living can be hectic. Seeing another bleached out street can feel mundane. Attending church next to an ailing shopping center probably doesn’t do much to inspire, but what does that have to do with vision? You’re alive! The sky is still the sky. Seeing is such a gift that I can’t begin to comprehend banality even in a desolate parking lot. With that enthusiasm, I tap into the bare bones of living. In going for the moment, any moment, there is a commonality we share, and it is that commonality that reads as narrative.