I have a completed painting titled “August Mountains” that measures 11.25″ x 15″. It is painted on primed canvas mounted on a custom wood panel. There is a wire attached on the back so it is ready to hang. The painting was made through a contemplative and artistic practice explored during the period between selection for the project and the submission date.

I have several spots in Roanoke where I like to set up to paint. I go to one of these spots by car and set up my french easel and outdoor studio gear. For this particular painting, “August Mountains” I set up in on the 3rd floor of a parking garage on Williamson Road near Elmwood Park. I had a view of the mountains- they were blue green in August. The building in the painting is a Physicians to Women building near the ramp on highway 581.

This quote from Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek comes to mind about the mountains in Roanoke: “Mountains are giant, restful, absorbent. You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some creeks will.” (p. 3) I felt this sense of sturdiness while painting these mountains in the parking garage.

For most of my paintings, including “August Mountains”, I start the work by drawing basic shapes with paint on a prepared surface. The shapes evolve with deeper looking until a design emerges that surprises and energizes me. Observation and a design focus worked in concert to make this image.

When I’m painting I like to imagine that what I’m seeing are masses of shapes and lines. The items in the visual world lose their names. When I get in this mindset I feel like I can be more receptive to whatever the motif has to say. Lately, it feels like nature is speaking more concisely– in simple designs that also feel symbolic.

For “August Mountains” I saw the line of the sky against the mountains as a particular set of curves. I looked for a pattern in the overcast sky and the shadows beneath the clouds. I simplified the buildings to be three dimensional blocks- to be seen in contrast with the organic forms in the mountains and foliage. I made a careful study of the values in the sky and the road so that the lightest value was in the sky between two of the mountains. I wanted to capture that feeling that the sky is reflected in the colors of the roads, trees, and buildings. The world feels like a mirror where everything lives in an envelope of air that is has a particular color and mood. I wonder if Annie Dillard felt a similar sense of oneness on her daily walks along Tinker Creek.

I read the text about two years ago and so it’s the memory of it that stays with me. What I mostly remember is Dillard’s admiration and curiousity while being in nature. She had an ego-lessness to her in this pursuit that felt good to participate in as a reader. That wide-eyed approach is what I keep in mind while I’m painting.

Page 266- “Come on, I say to the creek, surprise me; and it does, with each new drop. Beauty is real. I would never deny it; the appalling thing is that I forget it.”

In painting “August Mountains,” I experienced a similar call and response feeling that Dillard articulates in the above quote. I asked the landscape about itself and it surprised me with a sense of cosmic order and pattern.

What is too much? What is enough? How does balance feel? What feels like the right dose of dissonance? How does one refine a feeling? These are all questions that center around design.

I ask these questions to the landscape in a similar way that Annie Dillard asks to be surprised by the creek. I want to know how much information is needed to make a painting that will tell me and the viewer about the quality of air in Roanoke on an overcast day in August. When does a painting have so much information in it that the design and message dissolve into confusion? How can a painting feel challenging and appealing at the same time? How can this painting then transmit the wordless experience of witnessing blue mountains in August for hours at a time? How does one then refine this witness feeling so it is felt in the gut when one looks at “August Mountains?” I wonder if Annie Dillard faced a similar challenge- how to translate the feeling of witnessing nature into literature.

I’m learning more and more about trusting my own eye. When I ask the landscape a question like- Will you surprise me?- I have to tune my intuition to hear the response and allow that response to make itself known in my particular voice.

The work should be ready to hang in time for the show.

DCJ – Okay to pay
$500
300065-2010
Percent for Art
9/25/25