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.

 

Martin Avenue, Stafford, Kansas, U.S. Highway 50

Martin Avenue, Stafford, Kansas, U.S. Highway 50
acrylic on six shaped ragboard panels, artist-made frames
12 5/8 x 60 1/4 x 2 3/16 with a 2 3/4 inch spacing at the base of each frame

The view of Martin Avenue, Stafford, Kansas comes from a trip taken in 2013. I was in Dallas for the opening of The Dallas Years, a show intended to commemorate the time I spent living in the city. On the way home from Valley House Gallery to Utah, I headed north on U.S. Highway 75.

Because I went to the Dallas Museum of Art before I left, it was perhaps early afternoon, before I cleared the outer reaches of the city. The journey into Kansas, is an all day trip. In the later part of March, the days are not long enough, without an early start, to cover any distance without driving into the night. I’d been informed by a gallery staffer, that a huge snow storm blew through Kansas. Ignoring the warning, I assumed that the roads would be clear enough, by the time I reached Emporia, where I planned to spend the night.

Seeing any part of the eastern side of Kansas, happened so long ago, that I really looked forward to the excursion. An old friend of mine, who became my wife, and then ex-wife, was going to school in Lawrence at the time. The year was 1988. When I went to see her, I’d leave on a Friday just after work. Because it was late in the day, the sun always set before I got to Kansas. The countryside vanished into a line of oncoming headlights, long before crossing the bridge over the Arkansas River into downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. Because it was late, beyond the Kansas border, most travelers had already retired for the night. Highway miles would slip away, with the headlights of a single car, riding a fixed position, a far-off reflection, centered in the abyss of my rear view mirror. In the dead of night, it was not hard for me to envision, something from a movie scene playing out in real life. Then I’d breathe a sigh of relief, when the headlights left the highway, headed in the direction of some late arrival, buried deep within the quiet hours of starlight.

Until I drove home on Sunday afternoons, I never got to see Kansas by daylight. Although the state is still part of the plains, the countryside seemed less stubby than either Texas or Oklahoma. Memory is a vague kind of thing, an impression of events with most of the details missing. Retracing the mileage of any highway, fills in with bits of familiar information. The succession of events, recovers all the missing details that quickly vanish chasing down whatever lies just behind a receding horizon. Every oncoming mile, becomes knowledge based anticipation. Remembering previously seen sites, is played out in a recognition that comes from the motion of momentary photographic memory. I find, that I remember all the insignificant bits of a trip that time had forgotten.

When I pulled into Emporia, the night air was as brittle as the plowed up snow that surrounded the motel. Because I was late leaving Dallas, I never got to replay the familiar sights of the Kansas countryside. In the morning, heading in a westerly direction, every mile of horizon on U.S. Highway 50 would be new, until I got to Colorado.

By the time I got to Stafford, I’d traveled nearly a 150 miles, taking pictures all along the way. Although primarily a two lane road, the current highway bypasses most of the towns of Kansas. If you hope to see anything affiliated with Main Street, you will need to leave the highway. The pull of the horizon, is punctuated every ten miles or so, by a colonnade of white silos. Travel any distance and you’re bound to witness, a freight train overtaking the fortress of a grain installation overseeing the plains.

The waning Martin Avenue, may feel like the perfect combination of clutter, a rare something that I’d come upon, that was just waiting to be painted. Standing in tracks of gravel, it is hard not to see many things that register as canisters of the past. There is the profile of silos. Piles of new and used tires, anchor the fluting of a metal shed, which intrudes into the view of a deserted service station. Behind it hide, a couple of old houses weathered nearly all the way to gray. There is a classic car, that has become such, by surviving the ravages of time. There is the back end of a pickup truck, which has become a homespun trailer. The front windows of a pink clapboard house, with a handicapped ramp and railing, are covered over in tinfoil. A blue sky of thinly veiled clouds, lends to the sensation that the place is barely hanging on, not quite ready to surrender to the shade of silence that echoes across most any horizon. I guess it could be easy to believe, that this scene was a lucky find, but a ballad of loss, can be found anywhere. I know this from walking. If you’re open to the nature of place, there is a story ready to unfold.

I happen to be fond of architectural form, whether it be the lift of a high-rise condominium, a picture frame that sharpens the breadth of a painting, or the inverted shape of a tapered paper cup, that is all about volume and circumference. Even a blank sheet of paper, feels complete to me. I see no separation between the artwork and the surface that supports it. Picture plane and paint are both significant. Within the panels of Martin Avenue, I wanted to get away from the constraint of vertical rectangles. I didn’t want the sequence to hang as pillars of 2-dimensional space. The shape of a rectangle amplifies the impression of a plane. It is difficult to experience a sensation of space within the confines of a shape so stable. The squared up framing of information, resists the influence of horizontal spin and the impact of gravity. The rectangle offers no possibility for periphery, or a chance to be distracted. Without the sweep and dive of perspective, it is hard to know where you are. Imagery becomes a flat abstraction, a postcard kind of a thing that can’t be inhabited. The perception of space is dependent on a perspective that is hard to achieve within limitations of a standard rectangle. That is why when I photograph a place, the process almost always involves more than just one picture.

The panels were designed to amplify sky. However, they happen to point in every direction. Although the shape favors the pitch of the rooftop and the angle of the left corner, the structure also leans to the right, encouraging you to repeatedly take in every direction. That bit of visual wanderlust embraces the nature of place. You no longer remain a spectator outside the picture plane. The depiction of a moment in time, begins to take on a note of recognition that hopefully extends a little beyond the limits imposed by 2-dimensional space. I hope the painting has a presence, a sense of atmosphere, close enough to provoke a feeling of kind of like being there. And if you happen to know this sort of place, the landscape, much like a song, becomes your narrative.

Painting never is an Imitation of Nature

Uptown Splash, Dallas, Texas
acrylic, charcoal, paper, canvas, and wood
12 1/8 x 90 11/16 x 1 5/8 inches

Although, I’ve spent nearly 30 years dedicated to landscape painting and the idea of time and place, none of that would have been possible without my background in abstraction. The two are often thought of as completely separate ways of being. That has never been my experience. Painted observation is frequently seen as the imitation of nature. The problem with that idea is that there are no ready-made colors or brushstroke that symbolize earth and sky. A tree painted of lines, dots and scribbles is not a copy, any resemblance to a swaying pine is in every sense an invention.

Dallas, Texas Construction Site
acrylic, charcoal, water soluble crayon, wood, cardboard, and canvas
7 15/16 x 35 1/2 x 1 11/16 inches

Recently, I’ve made a few pieces that include both ends of the spectrum. In each case, abstraction was my starting point. As I considered the abstractions, they seemed to suggest things like slush and snow, or the subtle colors of an early Kansas spring. These combinations are not intended be a direction, but when they arise, I will let them happen. Over the years, I’ve done many things. I’ve painted leaves, vacant lots, cattle, mountaintops, and residential neighborhoods. There is no escaping nature. It can be found in the sights and sounds all around us. Walking always enabled me to tap into a place where the Grand Canyon and a trashcan are equal. I came to see that the moment was the thing that mattered. In it, all I could see was the lay of the land. From gravel to sky, came the understanding that the topography of paint, no matter how real, can never ever be anything but abstraction.

Battle of Coon Creek, Kansas Sampler, US Highway 50
acrylic, canvas, graphite, paper, and wood
34 15/16 x 7 5/16 x 1 1/2 inches

CLIFF’S GAS DIESEL, Holly, Colorado; U.S. Highway 50

CLIFF'S GAS DIESEL, Holly, Colorado; U.S. Highway 50
acrylic
8 3/8 x 26 x 4 inches

Holly, Colorado was the last town before crossing over into Kansas on east bound U.S. Highway 50.  The plan was to a camp north of Stockton, Kansas so I could drive with sunrise back into Colorado.  Exhausted, I stopped at a closed filling station to examine a map.  Turning around, I searched for a road I failed to spot.  At that hour, the highway hosted only intermittent trucks.  In an area of fog I saw the turn off.  The methane fog filled with dust driving in a land of feedlots.  With each and every turn I wondered if I was getting any closer.  The road came to a tee.  On the left, there was a hollow of trees.  A lane straight ahead led to a house and other structures that hovered around a small porch light.  I turned right.  Headlights highlighted insect collisions when a sense of destiny began to settle in.  Continued travel on gravel only led deeper into starlit fields with a moon that would soon slip behind the horizon. 

It was nice to be on the highway heading back to a rest area I past just before leaving Colorado.  Although the plan was to camp, sleeping in the car was not impossible.  By folding the backseats forward, the trunk could accommodate 8 foot lengths of molding, it seemed like a sleeping bag could also fit into that space.  With part of the bag encased in the hollow of the trunk, getting in was a bit tricky.  Climbing through one of the back doors, I slid into the sleeping bag.  With my feet in the trunk, I embraced starlight from the calm of my pillow.  Although more comfortable, the car provided a private viewing of the nighttime sky that a tent denies.  It was nice to no longer be moving.  I settled in listening to the sound of crickets and other travelers pulling in.  With a sweep of idle headlights, car doors opened and closed.  Restrained voices trailed off; time acquired the weight of late arrival.
 

CLIFF'S GAS DIESEL, Holly, Colorado; U.S. Highway 50 (Left Side Detail)

I arrived by morning light.  The main street was off the highway as many main streets are out on the open plains.  Back on the highway, CLIFF’S GAS DIESEL was surrounded by piles of tires.  It was hard to tell exactly what Cliff did.  Outdated pumps stood in front of a rundown building, yet his business seemed to carry on.  I liked the station’s architecture.  It reminded me of a time when I enjoyed the highway as a child.  To say I like something implies a preference for the subjects I select.
While that may be true, it doesn’t happen in the ways you might expect.  I like everything.  Every place has moments, and one of those moments was a moment when I happened to be somewhere.  That may sound egocentric, but the only moment I know is the one I’m living in.  I realize dawn has come to Holly many times before, and that morning is an ordinary affair, but it is that common occurrence that seems to be so rare.  Instead of trying to create or capture the spectacular, I am thoroughly invested in minor events.  And since life is always happening, it doesn’t matter whether I am standing by a pile of tires or overlooking a vale of the Great Basin.  The same light that revels in sedimentary uplift sparkles in bits of broken glass and the asphalt patina flash that skips past fast food carcass discards along an open highway.  Feel the exhilaration in a swirl of rough and dusty leaves kicking up ruts and sailing across puddles permanently plaguing the bend of an alleyway. 

CLIFF'S GAS DIESEL, Holly, Colorado; U.S. Highway 50 (Right Side Detail)

With the filling station withstanding the ravages of time, I thought it might be nice to capture the historic nature of the place.  Of course, that could easily be achieved by using color.  Although color generally belongs to the realm of painting, I thought I would paint the station in shades associated with photography.  And although we see in color, thoughts of yesterday can be layered in shades of gray.  That is not to say that memory is colorless.  It is just that the paper trail of the past includes books, newspapers and magazines printed in black and white.  Photography dated parents and grandparents while still young in pallid shades of gray.  In that mix fell sepia prints.  Painting in shades of photography plays into a placement of frames on a desk, mantle or shelf.  Though not portraiture, landscapes have a capacity to spark hidden bits of consciousness.  Simple sights or sounds may remind us of other times and places.  Nostalgia is a riddle of the familiar.  The frame is reminiscent of snapshots, the evidence of a planned vacation, except no happy couple stands in front of an exquisite destination.  It is the domain of place, any place that is so compelling.  Another day arises on a highway in the town of Holly, Colorado.  As dilapidated as the filling station seems to be, CLIFF’S GAS DIESEL is still in business.  I could hear work  going on in the garage as I got into the car ready to hit the highway.