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ABSTRACT LANDSCAPE: A sense of place.

My most recent work seems to be about the landscape. It wasn’t intentional but it is just seeping into everything I’m painting. I often start a painting, thinking it will be one thing but then it takes on a life of its own and becomes another. The painting below was a surprise… a place deep in my past and attached to a story.

‘PRAIRIE STORM’ 36” X 48”, acrylic on canvas, (in process)

I grew up on the Alberta Plateau where it crosses into British Columbia and before it ends at the Rocky Mountains as they wind their way north to Yukon. I was raised north of Dawson Creek on a 3000-acre grain farm just south of the Peace River. The Alberta border bisected our farm, but the home place you see below was in BC.

My Great Grandparents and their 9 children (with spouses), homesteaded much of the land we had in my childhood. My Grandparents stayed, acquiring land the seemed worthless at the time from family and other homesteaders the Great Depression.

The long cold winters, blue skies, bright sun, winds, punishing droughts, and unpredictable storms are the marks of the prairie landscape. The moderator of the joys and hardships of farm life.

The farm yard, 1985

My family having a late summer picnic at our favorite place on the farm. We called it ‘The Point’ and enjoyed its beautiful view no matter what the season. It was at the end of a tributary that ran several miles from the back of our house to the Peace River. 1974

The same day. I’m picking the dry seedheads of wild crocuses that bloomed in blankets of mauve every spring.

The view from The Point, down the Peace River valley with its fertile flats and shifting islands. This valley is at risk… Site C Dam construction

Here is the story behind the painting….

Even though the painting feels raw and unfinished, it completely contains the moment it is meant to capture. I was driving home the 30 miles from Dawson Creek to the farm with my Dad. I might have been 10 or 11 years old. We were 3 miles from home. We had been chasing a thunderhead for 20 minutes. We rounded the corner to our first field when the hail hit.

As we passed the field of perfect seed wheat to our left and headed for the home stretch, my Dad said, “there goes $100,000 “as the wheat was flattened by the downpour of icy pellets. He said it so calmly as if it were inevitable. It did make a difference that year. We all knew there was going to be nothing special, or at least nothing that required money.

I’m almost afraid to touch the painting at this point because it might lose the raw energy that comes from the first stage of every painting. Then, I simply struggle to add layers and complexity without losing that initial impulse.

THE PACIFIC COAST vs THE ALBERTA PLATEAU

In comparing the first painting of the prairie storm to the painting below, I see the stark difference in the character of those two places. The ‘Prairie Storm’ is full of unpredictable energy that for me was still palpable when I painted it last month. The one below ‘Forest Stream’ is softer, more sheltering, and quiet.

This quality is what I fell in love with when I moved to Vancouver Island at 18. Both have vitality. Both are life-affirming. Both have the raw beauty of every natural landscape. I love them both even though they are very different.

We are so attuned to ‘landscape.’ I suggest this is part of our evolutionary past. The place that provides what we need to survive and also endangers us.

Humanity depends on the natural world. Even if it does not need to provide our immediate needs for food and shelter anymore, without it we cannot thrive as individuals or a global community…. emotionally or physically.

‘ FOREST STREAM’ 36” X 48” acrylic on canvas $1200.00 contact me here

One last thing… I have been reading Daniel Leviton’s “The Organized Mind”. He mentioned the theory that part of the adaptability of the human species is that we are all somewhat distractible.

Most mammals focus on only the information in the environment that they need to survive and don’t move too far from the environment that provides those needs. But we humans are wanderers…. leaving the familiar landscape and exploring new opportunities that also present new challenges.

This made our attentional filters more porous. We needed to learn so much more about where we found ourselves and we needed to learn it quickly. So people had to change their focus outward, toward the new and different. What we needed to understand were the new landscapes we were moving into.

This change in our ability to pay attention to the wider world instead of only our immediate needs has made us curious, adventuresome, flexible, and creative. Wow! you have to love that!

I also think this is an interesting consequence of this is our sensitivity to landscape and “place”. We travel, hike, and drive to view the different landscapes we love and to discover new ones. We build gardens and parks that mimic the natural world. No other animal does that:-)

Our family The banks of the Peace River, 1965

Thanks to my brother Shane who provided the old photos.

DARCY ELISE JOHNSON