Backroad Attraction

The Isaac Storm is going away from us and my red eye looks better than before, so I was itching to go outside to paint. Where should I go? I thought of the news I saw on TV this morning. A 116-year-old lady was celebrating her birthday today. She was one of eight people in the world who had this kind of longevity. I calculated and found out she was born in 1896. 19th Century! Immdiately a thought came to my mind: Did she ever dream of cell phone, laptop, the internet, etc. when she was a child? If any of her friends had talked something like those high-tech products in childhood, it must have been like talking about Jules Vern's science fiction. As an old man, I do think the humankind have made the technology develop too rapidly and, like the genie out of the bottle, it makes me feel scared.

Whenever I go out to paint landscape, subconsciously I am looking for something which go with my feeling of yearning to see the world as I am familiar with and paint something that lets me feel a little reposeful, enjoy tranquility and harmony, something that can soothe my concerned mind because of the fear of being spun off the world I am used to.

 

I came across a website called Backroad Attractions this morning and found an old country church in Alva, FL, not even 10 miles from where I lived. I also wanted to put my home-made guerilla easel to test. I drove to Alva and painted this picture of the old Alva United Methodist Church. Hope you like it.

 

 

I spent two and a half hours on this 12 x 12 picture.  got there around 8:20 AM. The first sushlight just fell on the small all-white church. Amazingly, the morning sun shone so tenderly on it that you could clearly see the different shades within the color scheme of the softly shaded walls. the surroundings were so quiet with the Caloosahatchee River right behind the chruch. I love the simple lines of the country church. As a matter of fact, everything about the chruch suggested that you can soothe your soul better in this simple and friendly dwelling than even towering cathedrals.

 

Before I set up to paint, the church sexton Burnie Garrett was so nice that she offered to give me a tour of the church. She told me their church was established in 1886 and the building was constructed in 1903. it was well maintained. I believe a church like this is the best place for spiritual cleansing. As Nobel laureate Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore says, beautiful stones are better plainly set. To me, the social spirit represented by the Chritian church is a beautiful thing. Burnie also gave me a church handout, on the cover of which I noticed the quote from Psalm 90:1: Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in generations. We do need something that would stay unchanged at least for generations, if not for eternity.

 

My guerilla easel worked well. Comapratively speaking, I was well prepared today. I wore long-sleeve shirt and jeans. I sprayed myself all over with bug repellant. Interestingly mosquitoes came to my fingers when I was painting. I happened to be working on some delicate strokes. I had to let it suck some blood before I could have time to take care of it. There was nothing you could do about ants. They came to your easel and painting. Also your body! When I was working, I felt they were crawling on my neck and under shirt on my back. Oh, boy, doing plein air painting in August in Florida needs a kind of asceticism. If I had been born 500 years earlier, I am sure I could have been qualified to stand the stoic lifestyle of Jesuitical monastery.