Rural Winter Texas Landscape w/Cabin

Rural Winter Texas Landscape w/Cabin was created circa 1976 and it's current location or even existence is unknown. Might have been one of the works destroyed in a flood in San Marcos or even sold (though it's not likely as few works from that time period were). It was exhibited at the artist's short lived gallery space on the square in San Marcos around 1976 and in a few outdoor art fairs during that time frame. The original is an oil on canvas at a likely size of 18x24" a small work for the artist based loosely on the cabin and landscape in which the artist lived upon first coming to Texas when he was the overseer on a small ranch in Normanna. The cabin itself burned to the ground during the first winter freeze when a wood burning heater's spark escaped a upside down chimney pipe installed by the ranch owner, Mr. French, from Corpus Christi on or around Dec 7, 1974. While the artist woke up after midnight from the smoke and managed to escape with one guitar and his cat through a window, the entire structure collapsed within minutes of getting out with no means of calling the nearest fire department some 17 miles away in Beeville. Lost were about 20 original works created by the artist in his earliest years of painting and virtually all personal possessions. The mood of the painting captures the gloominess and cold of that first Texas winter in the south Texas ranchland where he lived for another few years in a shared 20' long tin shack with two Mexican nationals while working on the ranch, during which time he bicyled several days a week to Beeville to attend art classes at Bee County College taking courses under mentor, Simon Michaels (1905-2002).