#0290 "Forgotten Winter"

This is a scene I would love to have looking out any window of my home - maybe even a studio. My dream is to have a piece of the environment that can be protected for both my family and the nature that we would share it with. Land has been treated like a simple commodity for personal or corporate profit with little or no regard for the future. Certainly the economy based on extraction and exploitation of the land is not in any way sustainable. Maybe someday we will acquire a bit of land no one could make a buck off - preserved simply as land for the sake of habitat.

The willows were supporting a lot of sucker shoots on the edge of this frozen wet land. Overcast bands of thin cirrostratus foretold of another winter storm even though the colours of the trees and the light hinted at longer days and spring. I was looking southwest toward the approaching storm. The early spring sun felt good.

Those words were written in 1991 while I was still painting in the Under the Basement Stairs Studio on Western Avenue is Schomberg and commuting to the Ontario Storm Prediction Centre in Downsview. My drive was from quiet agricultural land into the bumper to bumper bustle of Steeles Avenue and north end Toronto. That drive to work was getting busier and longer and 12 hour shifts were the only answer for survival. It was a good thing that I loved the science and the weather.

Sometimes if you work hard enough, dreams do come true. The alternate name of this painting is "Out my Back Door". For this and much more art, click on Pixels. Thank you!