Railroad Signal, Highway and Sky Near the Intersection of 129 Rd, Spearville, Kansas, U.S. Highway 50, October 18, 2014

Railroad Signal, Highway and Sky Near the Intersection of 129 Rd, Spearville, Kansas,
U.S. Highway 50, October 18, 2014, 2023
acrylic on a shaped rag board panel, artist-made frame
4 11/16 x 20 5/16 x 1 5/8 inches

 

It is kind of surprising that I could place this image as precisely as I have. There isn’t much to go on. It could be any place on the plains. As I traveled, I detailed how I photographed each town along the way. However, in the in-between places, it is difficult to pinpoint the significance of a stop. There are no mountain or valleys to frame the rotation of the sun. The highway is position less as a landmark. Adrift, a turn of the horizon reveals a circular world of railroad tracks, cultivated fields, solitary barns, scant gatherings of trees, sheltered dwellings, vanishing rows of utility poles, and the sky.  

 

Although I find anything to with a highway intriguing, I never saw railroad signals as a means of navigation. They’re very much like utility poles, typical, but not nearly as common. Because the trip’s photographs are sequential, the stop had to be somewhere between Bellefont and Spearville. I wondered if I could be more specific than that. When viewing photography in a book or exhibition, I hate not knowing where a place happens to be. Titles can tend to be poetic. While a title like A Kansas Sky may sound very nice, it is not informative. I always want to know the location of a place no matter how universal the moment seems to be.

 

The previous set of photographs featured a field of wind turbines. With that information in mind, I could narrow the search of the highway. The relative flatness of the plains is completely leveled out when viewed from the sky. Aerial perspective reduces monumental grain elevators into miniscule sightings on the ground. A Birdseye view is abstract. Verticality vanishes without the presence of cast shadows. Utility poles can nearly become invisible. Without knowing what to search for, I would have never found the railroad signal. A light colored circular disturbance beside the train tracks was the only thing that gave it away. Only the surrounding mound of gravel could be seen from the air. The Google highway view proved that the signal was there. With that established, I could see that the shot was taken not far from an intersection with a dirt road. Feeling the exhilaration of insignificance that comes from a quiet stop along a highway, it is not surprising that 129 Rd did not make into my notebook.

 

City Limit, Florence, Kansas, U.S. Highway 50, March 26, 2013

City Limit, Florence, Kansas, U.S. Highway 50, March 26, 2013, 2023
acrylic on a shaped rag board panel, artist-made frame
4 1/8 x 13 3/8 x 1 5/16 inches

Tuesday was my second day of travel. I’d spent the night in Emporia, Kansas. A blizzard swept through the area a few days before I arrive. Piles of plowed up snow still framed the streets and parking lots. The springtime night shimmered in crystalline winter starlight. Taking U.S. Highway 75 north from Dallas, I was going to Utah. This wasn’t the way home. The usual two day of trip became three, just so I could catch the Kansas section of U.S. Highway 50, which goes from Maryland to California. I’d been at Valley House Gallery for the opening of The Dallas Years. The exhibition commemorated my time living in the city through paintings and drawings primarily based on sites I’d photographed while out walking.

 

Based on remaining snowbanks, the blizzard didn’t hit Florence with the same force that assailed  Emporia. As a pedestrian and traveler, I’m limited in what I can say about any place. I seldom know the history. I’m usually not familiar with the streets and alleyways. And even if I happened to be an extrovert, I still wouldn’t know the people. I inhabit an insular world that is encompassing, because seeing is a universal thing. Although I hadn’t been to Florence before, time has a familiar ring. Although no day is ever the same, it is in the repetition of living that we establish the recognition of patterns. At the latitude of Kansas, the progression of March is bound to stall out once in a while, beaten back by the impact of snow. Leafless trees stitch the sky to the horizon. Warehouses, sweeping fields, and highway signage tell me that that I’m skirting the main place of habitation. Familiar things remain new and exciting. The highway is never just a road no matter how many times it has been traveled. This was the first time that I’d driven this bit of highway. Everything was new, and yet it is the similarities to what is known that frequently captivates the imagination. The horizon was reminiscent of the agricultural terrain that I often saw in Texas. Because sight is a major aspect of living, painting any place automatically blends the present with the past.