So like many others here in the United States, we are staying at home.
I am in a fortunate position to be working from home, but there is also a portion of the time that I have here in the house that is clocked out. At that point, I am Kelly the artist instead.
When I go to reach for subject matter my input is now limited to the rooms of my house and puttering around my backyard to get some fresh air. I can do still life studies, and certainly do sometimes, but now’s also when I should turn to all of those photographs that I took while on vacation. I take those thinking I’m going to reach for them at some point, but often forget to. Now is when I need to open up the albums and relive the vacations. I can see the views from the wonderful driving trip we took to upstate New York, or to the West where we camped along the Rocky Mountains, or even when we took that meandering trip up to Minaqua to see fall colors. I have hundreds of pictures and dozens of them could make great paintings. I need to keep reaching into those memory files and pulling out a picture and saying “Ah, wasn’t that a fabulous vacation? Wasn’t that a fun time!”
This latest study is oil on canvas, hiking up the draw at Watkins Glen, New York two years ago.
Kelly E. James 