A View from the Old Home Place

Here's the next painting I did after taking that oil painting workshop back in the '80s (see post directly below). It hangs in my living room and will never be sold by me. It's the view across the Macoupin Creek Bottoms of the farm where my husband grew up.

"Crestview Oak" 12x16 oil, NFS

The view is looking east across the pasture where I loved to roam looking for Indian arrowheads. In the middle distance is a golden soybean field, almost ripe for harvest (the golden leaves turn gray when they're ready to combine); and in the far distance is a woods where we often mushroom hunted in the spring. In this view, I'm looking out the front window of our home on the hill to the west.

Even after almost 25 years, I still miss that farm. My husband was the only son in the family and he already had a good job with benefits (as opposed to the 24-7, 365 days a year gamble that farming had become), so turning it over to him when his dad retired was not an option, as badly as we wanted to hang on to the family farm.

I painted this scene and gave it to my husband's parents when they retired and sold the farm 25 years ago. It has hung in their living room all these years. Several years ago, Grandma went on a "giving-back" spree; making sure gifts were returned to the givers, so there would be no confusion about what belongs to whom when she dies. So that's how it happens to be hanging on our living room wall now.