Accepted in the 2022 NOAPS Best of America Small Works National Juried Exhibition

Oil painting on Belgian linen of a house on our street at twilight during a summer evening with fireflies glowing around the yard.

The neighborhoods in Springfield are iconic. In Southern California, where I was born and bred, developers and builders try to recreate the charm and character of neighborhoods like Phelps Grove and fall dismally short. It just doesn’t work using stucco, plastic roof tiles, fake beams and 4 different models that go on, one after the other, for ten miles. The only real difference within these residences is the landscaping. But comparing a 3 year-old palm tree to a 150 year-old red oak is like comparing a Rembrandt to a Rauschenberg.

Consequently, when I walk through my neighborhood, it’s another world – the world that I heard about growing up but never saw. In fall, the colors are spectacular. On our street, the trees create a marvelous canopy of reds, oranges and yellows that are beautiful beyond description. When the sun is behind the leaves, its like a million tiny stained glass windows with colors just as vivid.

I love to take Lucy, our Blue Heeler, for walks in the evenings and enjoy the different architecture and landscaping. One evening, after the sunset, I was wandering down our street. I turned a corner and saw the house in the painting. The warm golden glow of the windows, the opened front door and the obvious care our neighbors took with their home spoke of familiarity, belonging and security.

It was such an inviting scene I had to try and capture the feeling of it. Even though fall was fast approaching when I saw this place, in the painting, I turned it back into early summer, added a few lightning bugs and a star and felt that same sense of warmth and family. To me, even though I wasn’t raised in a place like this, it feels like home.