October Oak

oil on panel

6" x 8"

Our home is an old church built in the late 1860s and my studio is an old one room school house also on the property. The church was in use well into the 1930s. A local farmer's funeral was the last service observed there. It was winter and the horse drawn hearse foundered on the muddy, snowy road and the men had to lay down logs to corduroy the worst part.of the road. The school house was built for black children who weren't allowed to go to the white schools, and was the last one room school in use here in Loudoun County, just shy of the mid twentieth century. One breezy fall day day a couple of years back, a sedan stopped in the dirt road that fronts our place and an elderly black lady got out of the car and stared at the studio.
We invited her to come up the little hill and go inside the old building but she said she couldn't make it over. She just wanted to look at it one more time. It turns out the lady was the last teacher at the school.
I've heard stories that she walked four miles from Purcellville every day to teach those children.
The school/studio and our home are surrounded by eight 200 year old oak trees, huge and majestic. They have been silent witness to all the struggle and joy that have played out in this place. Sometimes when I'm stumped about what to paint and the sun and wind through those giants reminds me, I go out under the oaks and look up and listen for the ghosts as I work to capture a moment.
If I'm fortunate the painting carries the essence of the place.