Chicken Feed

Chicken Feed, 11x14 oil on an archival panel

Landscape, figurative, barn, chickens, rural

For many years I had the great pleasure of teaching week-long art retreats at the Clearing Folk School  in northern Door County. There, the cedar scented bluff and the quaint log cabins held a promise for each and every student and instructor. One day I began a plein air painting demonstration of one of the small cabins. It turned out to be more of a talk than a painting session as I was peppered with question after question. I never finished the painting. It lingered in my studio for a long time and occasionally I’d make an attempt to finish it without much success. So, it and I sat and waited. Other paintings came and went. One day the overwhelming desire to paint the structure as I remembered it disappeared and I could paint the scene as I wanted it to be.
The little cabin became a pioneer homestead. The story-teller in me was finally at play with a sense of rural life and of course chicken’s. I’ve often heard and felt that painting “what you know” is a powerful creative tool. Imagining and embellishing “what you know” is also a means to share a feeling or emotion with a viewer. We had the great experience of living in the country for a time. There, we learned to garden, to raise chickens and sheep and to be a part of a rural community. Bits and pieces of all of that are a part of this painting.