One of my favorite childhood memories is flying over Lancaster County in a four-seater Cessna. My older brother, now a professional pilot, was taking flight lessons at a local airport and occasionally I was invited aboard. It was thrilling to view the landscape from a bird's eye view, feeling at once vulnerable and invincible at that great height. Once, without announcement, he stopped steering and turned the passenger wheel over to me in mid air. After a momentary panic and stomach-dropping dip, I raised the little craft to its proper path.
Seeing the fields from the air made an indelible visual impact. The orderly rows with seedlings, so like the embroidery of quilts, were rich with poetic possibility: fruitfulness of the tilled earth and the promise of harvest.
These "Field Hymns" are inspired by flights of plane and fancy. The gently curved and angular lines become musical, with patchwork harmonies of purple, green, gold, and brown.
"Lyrical Abstractions" is currently on view in the gallery until November 2nd.