A few weeks ago, I was at the Keeseville Community Arts Festival sponsored by ADK Action, an organization dedicated to taking action for the people and nature of the Adirondacks.
I was one of 40 artists from across the US and Canada who’d come to spend the week painting around Keeseville, a northern Adirondack hamlet a stone’s throw from Ausable Chasm, the Grand Canyon of the ADK.
I booked a room in the quaint but modern Shamrock Inn, and found myself naturally awake extra early each morning, eager to walk out the door to paint the early morning light over the Ausable River.
On one such morning, I set up on a bridge overlooking the river, just feet away from my dear friend Patricia Bellerose, who’d also ventured out early of her own accord.
The two of us—and many others, over the course of the week—painted that same scene. But of course, Patricia and I painted it in the same light, with the same bird song surrounding us.
And yet, our finished pieces could not be more different. We captured the same scene, but in our own style.
After attending many plein air shows—and making it my goal to apply to and attend many more, because there’s no better way to see this incredibly beautiful world—I can honestly say that self doubt no longer has a place in my painting toolbox.
Each time I explore a new place, I form a connection with its nature, its light, and its essence, and in developing that connection, I strengthen my skills; my voice that my brush speaks with; my signature that makes my pieces different from the rest.
It’s beautiful—to find yourself grounded in community. A community that holds you, encourages you, and still allows you to feel a blissful solitude.
Stillness cocooned me in those woods. I felt present; alive… no urgency, no divided attention, no self doubt. Instead, I was grounded in nature, paints, and good people.
Sitting at home writing this from my porch where hummingbirds feast at my feeder, morning doves and other birds create an orchestra of sounds, a young fox runs across the lawn, and squirrels play tag around the pine tree in front of my house, I am brought right back to that cocoon of stillness.
I can’t always spend four days painting in the woods, communing with fellow painters—and even scuba divers and mountain bikers who were similarly there to explore the area in their own way—but I can always revisit those moments in my paintings.
Because each of us artists is there to instill something—I call it magic—into our paintings that will heal or attract someone to feel something.
My hope is that when you see my paintings, you feel that stillness come over you. You let the light inspire you. And you let the magic give you hope.