Original oil on panel
6” x 8”

Painted en plein air in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana. This was exhibited during the year end show of the Plein Air Painters Chicago group show last year.

This was made when I came back to painting after a couple years away, going through job loss, extreme financial hardship, and if i’m being honest, loss of hope… which for someone who has always been a glass-full person, the absence of optimism and not seeing anything to hope for externally, is not anything I ever want to experience again, or am even able to accurately describe what that darkness feels like as you are paralyzed by it daily. Financial collapse wasn’t the hard part, the disappearance of hope was.

I didn’t go into this painting with an intent to communicate any of that ordeal, but when I look at in now, it clearly is coming across to me. I was starting to feel some of my old self come back when I took this trip to Montana, and that lighted bush in the corner seems to portray that glimmer of hope that was building in a dark and foreboding past landscape. Funny how the subconscious speaks through a brush and paint sometimes.

Item is framed and ready to hang.