I am suffering from a short attention span, so I have begun working on some little paintings. I have always believed that more headway is made by working through these spells than thinking through them. So, without regard to the possibility that I may paint over them tomorrow...I am painting whatever catches my eye. I have no grand concept to push me in one direction or another....yet.
Chuck Close:"Inspiration is highly overrated. If you sit around and wait for the clouds to part, it’s not liable to ever happen. More often than not work is salvation."
This is a little 5x7" oil of a lovely tree that sits in the sloping front yard of my parents home in eastern Kentucky. I don't do many landscapes anymore, but what fun to push color around this little canvas, keeping things loose and working from dark to light. This afternoon I was listening to NPR do story on coal (link to the story at the bottom of this post), which provides 50% of the energy used in the US. I knew it used to be quite prevalent, but hadn't realized the country was still so dependent on it. 
There is a movement afoot in the government to make us even more dependent on coal. If this happens, the speaker (whose name I didn't catch), stated that eastern KY would become essentially an industrial wasteland. From my parents home, which sits on top of one of the highest peaks, the evidence of this is already visible. The photo at left is the view from my parents backyard. This section of the strip mine is slowly being reclaimed by vegetation and elk, but it is still an ugly scar on the vista. Twenty years ago I was in grad school in Knoxville, and I would come home to visit and stew over the scar being ripped into the landscape. Yes, I know the miners must feed their families, and the options are not all that plentiful in eastern KY. But, there had to be a better way. There still has to be a better way. In the late 80's I learned that land on many strip mines were not reclaimed after the mining was completed because it was cheaper to pay the fines than to reclaim the land. I don't know if this is still the case...I hope not.
There is a movement afoot in the government to make us even more dependent on coal. If this happens, the speaker (whose name I didn't catch), stated that eastern KY would become essentially an industrial wasteland. From my parents home, which sits on top of one of the highest peaks, the evidence of this is already visible. The photo at left is the view from my parents backyard. This section of the strip mine is slowly being reclaimed by vegetation and elk, but it is still an ugly scar on the vista. Twenty years ago I was in grad school in Knoxville, and I would come home to visit and stew over the scar being ripped into the landscape. Yes, I know the miners must feed their families, and the options are not all that plentiful in eastern KY. But, there had to be a better way. There still has to be a better way. In the late 80's I learned that land on many strip mines were not reclaimed after the mining was completed because it was cheaper to pay the fines than to reclaim the land. I don't know if this is still the case...I hope not. But, what I've always understood is the incredible beauty of this land. It's a quiet, rugged, introspective kind of beauty that may be evident only to those connected to the space. I don't know. I'm not sure how objectively I see it, or if the nostalgia of childhood memories cloud my thinking. And I'm not sure that really matters in the great scheme of things anyway.
NPR Story on our dependence on coal:
No comments:
Post a Comment