This barn on Sawmill Road outside of St. Jacobs always intrigued me with its stark simplicity!
I wanted this painting to be sure and have some open and undetailed spaces, so a photo I had taken outside of St. Jacobs of a red barn on Sawmill Road seemed like a good challenge. Though I have no sense of what actually is grown within this structure, my guess is that it might be a chicken house.
This long narrow red barn had been taunting me with its wonderful simplicity. One of my favorite things to do is to play with (transform) perpendicular shapes. As an organic line lover, I always feel it is my mission to soften or eliminate hard right angles whenever possible. The barn provided ample opportunities!
Letting go of the detail in the planks of wood allowed for many unfettered stretches of barn, which had become so soft, that the red was too overpowering, and, of course, yellow took the stage instead. This painting, ‘Grow House Groove On’ has a happy, simple rhythm, and had proven to be rather successful in the elimination of over-extraneousness. However, the gas meter (lower left side) was a detail I could not eliminate, as it seems to be in control of the whole scene – like a nucleus – and it helped balance the starkness.
This painting presents a barrier, as if you’re held back from progressing into the blue yonder. But the pause is a welcome event, giving one time to collect oneself and grow and prepare for whatever is out there.
The indirect reference to pot within the title only speaks to the overall concept of ‘groovy’-ness.
- Subject Matter: Landscape
- Created: March 2014
- Inventory Number: 2014-06
- Collections: All Available Paintings, Serene Yellow Spaces